- The Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle.

By Mrs. Alexander Ireland.

OPINIONS OF THE PBESS ON THE

LIFE OF JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

ER IRELAND.

This life of Mrs. Cariyle is a sweet and sad story, told with all tenderness and
sympathy. . . . The jrftiume contains some letters never before published, but, even
without the^^oi-^jsi^evaluVble to every reader, if only for its subtle and withal
sympathetic aijalylsis of character.' DAILY NEWS.

a most welcome addition to the books which have to do with the life of
Thomas Carlyle and of his wife Jane. . .^Ln this, the latest contribution to the
elucidation of this melancholy
added some most suggestive
merits of Mrs. Ireland's boo!
than in the intelligence
already given in scat
picture of the woman
out the temper

he annals of genius, Mrs. Ireland has
stock previously available. . . . The
the absolute freshness
Eihe has brought t
is JL cor_ _^

preservls through-
ideal biographer. It has/apparently

lible. . . . The

of Jhe matten/X"

tijlr the f aclfuV jT^J

j\a life-lftfe/- ,/-

never occurred to/her > play the partisan, or to don the robe of the advocate.
She does not atteippj^to apportion blame between man and wife, but, speaking with
the voice of sympathetic common sense, she tells the tale almost wholly in the words
of those to whom it relates. Where she judges, she judges with wisdom, yet with
charity.' STANDARD .

' This work, it will be clear to all readers, has been a genuine labour of love ;
yet Mrs. Ireland has resisted the temptation which must surely be present to
everyone who takes pen in hand after studying Carlyle's own statements respecting
his wife, and his laments for his past blindness as to her mental trials of indulging,
even to a slight extent, in " gushing." Of this fault there is not a trace in the book,
which is yet preserved from the opposite extreme by the vivacity of the writer, no
less than by the nature of the subject.' YORKSHIRE POST.

' Mrs. Ireland's book is no mere echo. It is a careful, earnest, and independent
piece of literary work. . . . Mrs. Ireland has brought to her difficult and delicate
task keen sympathy and womanly insight, combined with a strong desire to be
impartial.' SCOTSMAN.

' This is a sad book, yet intensely interesting ; perhaps the sadness rather adds
to than detracts from the interest. . . . Mrs. Ireland has shown much power of
selection in her treatment of the life. . . . Enough is given to light up the brilliant
little figure, and no more. ... It is with a keen sympathy which seems to weigh on
her own heart that Mrs. Ireland alludes to the long, weary years at lonely Craigen-
puttock, that place so like a living grave to the sensitive, imaginative woman pining
for larger life.' MANCHESTER EXAMINER.

' It is an impartial book, in spite of Mrs. Ireland's profound sympathy with her
heroine. . . . Mrs. Carlyle is drawn with all perfections, and with her many short-
comings of temper, and intellectual breadth.' ECHO.

'Mrs. Ireland's volume is the best balanced and most authoritative study of
Mrs. Carlyle's life that has yet been published. . . . One cannot but be grateful to
Mrs. Ireland for reducing the mountain' of Carlyle's ill-treatment of his wife to his
neglect of " the small, sweet courtesies of life." . . . Mrs. Ireland writes brightly
carefully, and sympathetically.' ACADEMY.

' Mrs. Ireland's biography was worth writing, and is worth reading. It does no dis-
credit to the honoured name she bears. ... It brings to the problem of the Carlyles
the wise and gentle judgment of an experienced woman.' BRITISH WEEKLY.

' A story full of intense human interest is told by Mrs. Alexander Ireland in her
" Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle." Mrs. Ireland's straightforward narrative, unrelieved
as it is by melodramatic and misleading verdicts, . . . ought to set the whole
question of the characters of the ill-assorted pair at rest. . . . We are afforded a
picture of Carlyle and his wife as they appear to a sympathetic but dispassionate

OPINION OF THE PRESS continued.

observer. Mrs. Ireland seems to put Carlyle's nature into a nutshell : " Eyes," she
says, " which saw through the eternities, had strangely limited vision in the little
spot of earth on which he moved ; ears, which were open to the great inarticulate
cry of humanity, were unaccountably deaf, at times, to the distinct voice of pain in
the utterance of the heart nearest his own." ' HOME NEWS.

' Once again the pathetic story of Jane Welsh Carlyle's untiring devotion to her
famous, but unsympathetic, husband has been brought before the world in the
delightful volume by Mrs. Ireland, just published. We are offered certainly as inter-
esting a psychological study as any that could be imagined.' WHITEHALL REVIEW.

c In the " Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle," by Mrs. Ireland, there are numbers of pas-
sages that throw a clear light upon the relationship of the sage and his spouse. . . .
Mrs. Ireland gives, in a couple of sentences, a just discernment of the situation.
. . . Many people will be grateful for this sensible presentation of the facts of the
case, and for the skilful manner in which the salient incidents of a pathetic story are
grouped in this gracefully written volume.' LEEDS MEKCUBY.

' It is not often that the biographer puts before us a work like the present one.
It is a study of character rather than a record of action, and offers matter for
contemplation to the psychologist, and of sorrowful pondering over the problems of
human life.' NEWCASTLE LEADEB.

' The volume is deeply interesting ; Mrs. Ireland has done her work so well that
the biography deserves to rank very highly in Carlyle literature.' MOBNING POST.

'Like all good biographers, Mrs. Ireland makes the personages of her story
speak for themselves whenever she can, and, unlike some, she never wearies her
reader by dwelling too long on details. . . . We may confidently refer our readers to
the book itself. It will kindle fresh interest in a brilliant and fascinating personality,
and will earn the thanks of the multitude of readers whose sympathy had already
been roused by the half- told tale of Mrs. Carlyle's life.' MANCHESTEB GUABDIAN.

' The perusal of the " Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle," by Mrs. Alexander Ireland,
does not leave a pleasanb impression of Carlyle on the mind of the reader. In this
respect Mrs. Ireland may be said to have completed what Froude began, though, as
far as her own share of the work is concerned, there is nothing but unstinted praise
to be awarded : for its rigidly conscientious thoroughness, as well as for a charm of
style which is due as much to the heart as to the head of the writer. For any
curious student of humanity who wishes to know exactly what the domestic life of a
modern philosopher is like, and how- he bears " the ills that flesh is heir to," no
more interesting book than Mrs. Ireland's can be recommended.' LIVEBPOOL POST.

' In her description of the unique courtship of Carlyle and Miss Welsh, Mrs.
Ireland seems to us to do full justice to the beauty of Carlyle's character, and to
soften greatly any judgment we might have as to Carlyle's later thoughtlessness in
his companionship with his wife.' BBOOKLYN TIMES.

' Mrs. Ireland has conferred a benefit on the reading world at large in writing
and publishing the "Life of Jane Welsh Carlyle." Here we have the whole pathetic
story of one of the most interesting women, if not the most interesting woman, of the
nineteenth century. ... In this volume she stands a charming creation. . . . We
gladly welcome this sympathetic history, told by a cultivated and gifted writer, of
one of the most attractive personalities of her time.' THE NEWSMAN.

' Mrs. Ireland has achieved a success of no ordinary distinction. In choosing to tell
the story of Jane Welsh Carlyle, she took upon herself probably the most difficult task
in all modern biography. . . . Mrs. Ireland's narration is a real achievement.' STAB.

' This is a charming book. Mrs. Ireland writes with the grace and power of an
accomplished litterateur, and with the enthusiasm of a hero-worshipper. Boswell
himself could hardly have done better. . . . The book differs from most biographies in
that it is thoroughly interesting, and well worth reading.' NEW OBLEAKS PICAYUNE.

' The wedded life of this highly respectable, yet wofully mismated couple, has
been the subject of so many books and essays, that Mrs. Alexander Ireland's volume,
" Jane Welsh Carlyle," condensing most that is of value in other writings about the
Carlyles, should be accepted with gratitude by those who are interested in the
subject. It will specially interest women.' NEW YOBK HEBALD.

Condon : CHATTO & WINDUS, 214 Piccadilly, W.

JANE "WELSH CARLYLE

LIFE OF

JANE WELSH CARLYLE

BY

MRS ALEXANDER IRELAND

1 All at once they leave you ; and you know them '

BROWNING'S Paracelsus

WITH A PORTRAIT AND FACSIMILE LETTER

SECOND EDITION

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1891

PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

PR

PREFACE

1 HAVE wished for some years to write about Jane Welsh
Carlyle, were it only to echo from my heart the opinions of
those who were privileged to know her those whose eyes
were open to her deep, isolated nature, her shining gifts, her
unique charm, and her life of pain.

My first step was to apply to Mr. Carlyle's literary
executor, Mr. FROUDE, for permission to avail myself of his
exhaustive volumes, without which my task could not pos-
sibly have been attempted. This permission was most kindly
granted me, and it must be observed that all quotations,
passages from letters, &c., in this memoir unless specially
indicated as drawn from other sources may be referred to
Mr. Froude's pages.

I am indebted to Mr. D. G. RITCHIE, Fellow and Tutoi
of Jesus College, Oxford, for valuable aid. Through his cour-
tesy I secured the consent of his publishers, Messrs. SWAN
SONNENSCHEIN, to use certain passages from the ' Early Letters
of Jane Welsh Carlyle.' He has kindly made the Index to
the present volume.

Mr. Ritchie also gave me information which resulted in
my obtaining access to the hitherto unpublished letters from
Mrs. Carlyle to Mrs. Dinning, the ' Grace Rennie ' of the old
Haddington days. For the permission to publish these letters,

vi PREFACE

as well as for the sight of the originals, I am directly in-
debted to Mrs. ANTHONY F. NICHOL, of Bradford House,
Belford, Northumberland. This lady is a grand-daughter of
Mrs. Dinning.

I have received much aid, in more directions than one,
from Mr. HENRY LARKIN, the devoted friend of both Mr. and
Mrs. Carlyle. He it is whose article, ' A Ten Years' Remin-
iscence ' published some years ago in the ( British Quarterly
Eeview ' shows such understanding and sympathy. To Mr.
Larkin I also owe the letter of Mrs. Carlyle to himself, which
is here given in facsimile.

Mr. JOHN STORES SMITH, of The Laurels, Chesterfield,
literary executor to the late Miss Jewsbury, kindly placed
in my hands the letter from Mrs. Carlyle to this beloved
friend of hers. The letter, though undated, and without
post-mark, bears indisputable testimony as to the time at
which it was written, namely within a very few months of
Mrs. Carlyle's death.

I am also grateful to Mr. DAVID DOUGLAS, publisher,
Edinburgh, for permission to use certain extracts of singular
interest from Lieutenant-Colonel Davidson's l Memorials of a
Long Life.'

The Collotype photograph has been executed by Messrs.
Elliott & Fry, from a portrait of Mrs. Carlyle, taken about the
year 1850. It is pronounced, by one who knew her well,
to be one of the most characteristic presentments possible.

ANNIE E. IEELAND.
May 1891.

CONTENTS

PART I
GIRLHOOD

CHAPTEE I
A.D. 1801-1819

PAGB

Early days in Haddington The Welsh family Dr. John Welsh His
marriage John Welsh of Liverpool The home at Haddington
The only child Her beauty and talent The rival grandfathers
Schooldays at Haddington Jeannie's love of danger and adventure
Edward Irving as private tutor Early signs of originality in the
'only child' . 1

CHAPTEK II
A.D. 1819-1821

Strong attachment between the father and daughter The last talk
Sudden illness and death of Dr. John Welsh Jeannie's ' Paganism '
Serious thoughts' Early letters ' to Eliza Stodart Boarding-
school in Edinburgh Active tendencies Teaching Character-
istics more plainly shown The loss of the father's influence
Haddington felt to be dull Early lovers Power of language . 16

CHAPTEE III
A.D. 1821

First meeting with Thomas Carlyle Introduction by Edward Irving
The May evening Irving's attachment to Miss Welsh Carlyle
and Margaret Gordon Isabella Martin George Kennie Miss
Welsh's early impressions of Carlyle Literary ambitions and pro-
jects Irving's engagement to Miss Isabella Martin Miss Welsh's
hesitation in accepting Carlyle as a lover Miss Welsh's readings
of Rousseau George Kennie's departure Visit of Carlyle to
Haddington Possibilities 25

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV
A.D. 1821-1825

Miss Welsh's German studies Projected literary work Irving's
anxieties as to Miss Welsh's reading Remonstrances Irving goes
to London He introduces Carlyle to the Bullers The tutorship
More intimate correspondence between Carlyle and Miss Welsh
Friendship the footing prescribed by Miss Welsh Irving's mar-
riage to Miss Martin Continuation of the Buller engagement
Carlyle's wooing, and its results Stoical acceptance of repulse
Dr. Fyffe Miss Welsh's admiration for genius The letter from
Goethe to Carlyle Sympathy on Byron's death 'Benjamin
B ' Miss Welsh does not pay a visit to the Irvings in London

PAGE

CHAPTER V
A.D. 1825

Carlyle in London Thoughts of marriage Difficulties Mrs.
Montagu 'Barry Cornwall' Allan Cunningham The breaking
off of the Buller engagement Irving's hospitality Serious reflec-
tions Consultations with Miss Welsh The idea of ' living on a
farm ' Miss Welsh's very different project Carlyle's independent
spirit Exceptional position of affairs Miss Welsh's delicate
health The proposal to farm Craigenputtock Final decision left
to Miss Welsh Suspense Discussion Modest wants of Carlyle
Miss Welsh demurs at the essential conditions, but still proffers
friendship Carlyle's renewed professions of attachment

CHAPTER VI
A.D. 1825

Carlyle at Hoddam Hill Miss Welsh's transference of Craigenputtock
to her mother Carlyle's personal appearance at this time Miss
Welsh's beauty Letter from Mrs. Montagu to Miss Welsh Refer-
ence to Edward Irving An independent spirit Second letter of
Mrs. Montagu Results Miss Welsh informs Carlyle of her old
attachment to Irving A woman's appeal Carlyle's reply Imper-
fect understanding Exciting correspondence Engagement of
Miss Welsh and Thomas Carlyle Visits to Hoddam Hill and
Mainhill Difficulties as to future residence Incompatibility
between Carlyle and Mrs. Welsh Misgivings Correspondence
with the Carlyle family Their removal to Scotsbrig

60

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER VII
A.D. 1825-1826

PAGE

Loyalty of Miss Welsh Her sense of being bound to the engagement
with Carlyle Proposal to live at Scotsbrig The actual versus the
ideal Miss Welsh's mind made up Carlyle's determination not to
live in the house with Mrs. Welsh A daughter's devotion and
appeal Kenunciation of the cherished wish The point yielded . 71

CHAPTEE VIII
A.D. 1826

Mrs. Welsh decides to further the marriage Her decision to live with
her father at Templand The Carlyle parents see the impossibility
of their son's bride living at Scotsbrig A new home to be cho.sen
Impossible conditions Blindness of Carlyle to the actual situa-
tion Trying uncertainty The idea of the home at Haddington as
a residence for the newly-married pair Painful objections The
idea abandoned Kecurring failure of plans And a dissimilarity
in ideas The proposed cottage in Annandale 77

CHAPTEE IX
A.D. 1826

The home at Haddington broken up Comely Bank furnished by Mrs.
Welsh Immediate difficulty over Mrs. Welsh happier Her
pride in Carlyle's genius Her estimate of him The marriage at
Templand Natural cravings for the affection of Carlyle on the part
of his bride-elect Her unconventionality State of mind as to the
approaching ceremony Miss Welsh prepares to put off her mourn-
ing for the occasion The 'three cigars' Good resolutions
White gowns A post-chaise to Comely Bank 83

PART II
EARLY MAEEIED LIFE

CHAPTEE X
A.D. 1826

Comely Bank Good resolutions Social opportunities A wifely
letter Narrow income Visit of Dr. John Carlyle The daily life
The little 'Wednesday evenings' Friendship with Jeffrey

x CONTENTS

PAGE

Brighter prospects Household activities on Mrs. Carlyle's part
Renewed ideas of living at Craigenputtock Its unsuitability to
Mrs. Carlyle's needs Carlyle visits it with his brother Alick
The tenant about to leave Letter from Mrs. Carlyle Loving
response 95

CHAPTEB XI
A.D. 1827

Alexander Carlyle and his sister Mary go to live at Craigenputtock
The visit of the Carlyles to Templand, Scotsbrig, &c. Prospect
of some professorship for Carlyle Disappointment Decision for
Craigenputtock A sacrifice Bleak and barren situation of the
new home Jeffrey's disapproval of the plan Mrs. Carlyle's
courage House-moving Carlyle's despair Correspondence of
Mrs. Carlyle with her old friend, Miss Eliza Stodart Ideals of
married life relinquished Carlyle's frequent depression and ab-
sorption in his work The wife's isolation 103

CHAPTEB XII

A.D. 1827-1829

* Cares of bread ' The first loaf Visit of the Jeffreys to Craigen-
puttock Mrs. Carlyle's preparatory ride to Dumfries Friendly
advice of Jeffrey to Carlyle Invitation to Moray Place The two
mountain ponies Mrs. Carlyle's loneliness ' Brother Alick ' A
visit to Templand Letter from the wife to the husband Visit of the
Carlyles to Edinburgh 22 George Square Return to 'The Desert'
Serious illness of Mrs. Carlyle Visit of Mrs. Welsh Perma-
nently weakened health , . .110

CHAPTEB XIII

A.D. 1830-1831

Alexander Carlyle leaves Craigenputtock Second visit of the Jeffreys
to the Carlyles in their solitude Mrs. Carlyle confesses her un-
happiness to Jeffrey The eventless life again sets in The
Jeffreys go to London Carlyle's generosity to his brothers He
accepts help from Jeffrey, and goes to London to push his literary
enterprises A hard and sad time for Mrs. Carlyle Ill-health and
anxiety Her verdict on 'Sartor' Letters from Carlyle to his
wife Irving in the region of the supernatural Caution of pub-
lishers Good appointment for Dr. John Carlyle Thoughts of

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

living in London Tender letters from Carlyle Solitude doing its
work on the delicate constitution of Mrs. Carlyle Kindness of
Carlyle's mother Mrs. Carlyle's determination to join her husband
in London Encouragement .118

CHAPTER XIV

A.D. 1831

Mrs. Carlyle's arrival in London Ampton Street The Irvings Ill-
health of Mrs. Carlyle Position with Mrs. Montagu Meetings
with congenial spirits Carlyle still restless Death of his father
Impending return to Craigenputtock Misgivings A sad return
Solitary habits Kealisation of the actual by Mrs. Carlyle
Jeffrey's anxiety about Mrs. Carlyle ...... 125

CHAPTEE XV

A.D. 1832-1834

Carlyle's letter to his mother Mrs. Carlyle's overstrained nerves and
failing strength Her letter to Eliza Stodart Mrs. Welsh's deli-
cate health Death of Walter Welsh of Templand The Carlyles
plan a long visit to Edinburgh The home at 18 Carlton Street,
Stockbridge The ' disgraceful home march ' An ' angel's visit '
at Craigenputtock Meeting of Emerson and the Carlyles The
relapse into solitude Living in London seriously contemplated
Preparations 133

PABT III

LIFE IN LONDON

CHAPTEE XVI
A.D. 1834-1836

The new, yet old life Unalterable conditions The removal to
London Leigh Hunt John Stuart Mill Allan Cunningham
The circle of friends Edward Irving's visit George Kennie and
his sister Eliza Miles Burning of the MS. of Vol. I. of ' French
Eevolution ' Wifely sympathy ' The Sterlings ' Sprinklings of
foreigners Domestic difficulties Visit of Mrs. Welsh Maternal
counsels from Scotsbrig Godefroi de Cavaignac .... 145

Xll

CONTENTS

CHAPTEE XVII
A.D. 1836-1840

PAGE

Retrospect on the Scotch journey Keturn to Chelsea Mrs. Carlyle's
letter to Sterling Carlyle's supposed ' lady-admirers ' The lec-
tures Success and congratulations Second visit of Mrs. Welsh
Flight of Carlyle into Annandale ' The bird and the watch '
Regrets and ill-health of Mrs. Carlyle Cheque from Emerson,
being proceeds of French Revolution ' John Sterling's health
Reflections thereon Carlyle again in Scotland Letter to John
Forster : Why do women marry ? ' The Lion's wife 1 ' . .154

CHAPTEE XVIII
A.D. 1841-1846

Trouble at Templand Sudden alarm Summons too late Mrs.
Carlyle receives the news of her mother's death when on her way
to nurse her Carlyle goes to Templand to wind up the estate
Mrs. Welsh buried at Crawford Heartstricken letter to Mrs.
Russell of Thornhill Troston Rectory and the Bullers Lady
Harriet Baring Mrs. Carlyle's return to Cheyne Row First
meeting with Miss Jewsbury and the Paulets * The three-cornered
alliance' Household 'earthquaking' in Cheyne Row Mrs.
Carlyle's first expressed judgment of Lady Harriet Baring Stay
at Ryde Father Mathew Loss of strength Need of a quiet
place for Carlyle to write in Failure of the attempt Letter to
John Welsh of Liverpool Carlyle's hopefulness of his wife's
health Her visit to Liverpool and Seaforth (the Paulets) Visit
to the Grange Painful thoughts ' Cromwell ' concluded .

168

CHAPTEE XIX
A.D. 1846-1847

The dark cloud Carlyle's anxiety Mrs. Carlyle seeks counsel
Mazzini's honourable and noble advice The flight to Seaforth
Birthday gift and gentle words Renewed counsels Renewed
bitterness Lord Houghton's estimate of Lady Harriet Baring
Contrasts Sad thoughts dough's Poem Visit to W. B. Forster
Again at Addiscombe Hopeless misunderstanding The healing
of the wound rendered impossible 186

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER XX
A.D. 1847-1849

PAGB

Return to Cheyne Row Renewed illness Bitter reflections Disap-
pointmentConfidences to Uncle John Welsh A winter's visit of
Carlyle to the Barings Mrs. Carlyle remaining at Cheyne Row
Remonstrances of Miss Jewsbury Long illness of Mrs. Carlyle
Consultations with John Forster Visit to Addiscombe Death of
Lord Ashburton Carlyle's tour in Ireland The forgotten plaid
Mrs. Carlyle visits Lady Harriet Baring (now Lady Ashburton)
at Alverstoke Brilliant society but no sleep Death of John
Sterling Declining health of Jeffrey Haddington Betty Braid,
the ' old nurse ' Scenes of childhood revisited ' Mathew Baillie '
Mrs. Carlyle visits her father's grave Sunny Bank Sad and
loving meetings * Old Jamie ' Manchester and Miss Jewsbury
Illness of Helen Welsh of Liverpool . . . . . .197

CHAPTER XXI
A.D. 1849-1851

Introduction to James Anthony Froude Arthur Clough Spedding
Froude's impressions Mutual loneliness of the Carlyles Mrs.
Carlyle's letter to Mrs. Aitken Note to John Forster Visit to
the Grange by Carlyle 'Nero' and 'Shandy' Nero's letter
Failing ideals Society felt to be hard work by Mrs. Carlyle
Latter-day pamphlets concluded Carlyle in Wales Renewed
household ' earthquakings ' at 5 Cheyne Row Failing strength
of Mrs. Carlyle Sad thoughts Fruitless regrets and good
resolutions 207

CHAPTER XXII
A.D. 1851-1853

Carlyle's visit to the Marshalls Tennyson and his bride Disgust at
the Exhibition of 1851 Visit to Mai vern Verdict thereon Miss
Gulij's letter Mrs. Carlyle again at the Grange Repairs at
Cheyrio Row Visit to Macready Carlyle's ' Life of Frederick '
He sails for Rotterdam A serious undertaking Mrs. Carlyle visits
Lady Ashburton Carlyle's second German tour Discomforts
Return to 5 Cheyne Row of Mrs. Carlyle Further ' earthquakings '
A second visit of Mrs. Carlyle to the Lady Ashburton Sleepless-
ness Depression The old letter Carlyle's return Commence-
ment of 'Frederick' Mrs. Carlyle with the John Carlyles at
Moffat Return to softer conditions at Chelsea .... 219

XIV

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXIII
A.D. 1853-1856

PAQB

Declining health of old Mrs. Carlyle of Scotsbrig Mrs. Carlyle
hastens to her Womanly tenderness The danger staved off
Return to Chelsea Death of John Welsh of Liverpool Visit of
the Carlyles to the Grange The ' soundless ' room at Chelsea
Return of Mrs. Carlyle Noises Death of Helen Welsh Death of
Carlyle's mother Wifely sympathy Miss Jewsbury comes to live
in London Miss Fox Mazzini's farewell Mrs. Carlyle's Journal
Deep misery Sympathy Budget of a ' Femme Incomprise ' . 229

CHAPTER XXIV
A.D. 1856-1858

Position between Mrs. Carlyle and Lady Ashburton The Scotch
journey Carlyle at 'The Gill' Mrs. Carlyle at Auchtertool
' Seeking and finding ' Sunny Bank Tender remembrances The
return to London Death of Lady Ashburton Tribute to her
Bitter reflections Scotland again First readings of a portion of
4 Frederick ' Wifely pride Mrs. Carlyle's return to Cheyne Row
Discouragement The kindness of Mr. Henry Larkin Another
visit to Germany Mrs. Carlyle at Lann Hall Holm Hill Letters
to Mr. Larkin Cheyne Row once more Second marriage of Lord
Ashburton Mrs. Carlyle's thoughts of her mother The visit to
* Humbie ' and Auchtertool Carlyle again in Annandale with his
own people . 243

CHAPTER XXV
A.D. 1859-1860

Life in Cheyne Row Mrs. Carlyle's return George Rennie's death
Letters of Mrs. Carlyle on the subject to Mrs. Dinning of Belford,
Northumberland Carlyle at Thurso Castle Mrs. Carlyle, with
Lady Stanley of Alderley, en route for Scotland Holm Hill
Misunderstanding as to date of Carlyle's return Mrs. Carlyle
returns to Cheyne Row unnecessarily Carlyle's remorse Two
servants kept 249

CHAPTER XXVI
A.D. 1861-1863

Mrs. Carlyle's craving for her ' one little maid-servant ' Death of
Arthur Hugh Clough Mrs. Carlyle's visit to Ramsgate with Miss
Jewsbury Sleeplessness Longings to visit Mrs. Russell Bsti-

CONTENTS xv

PAGB

mate of men Miss Barnes' marriage Deaths of dear friends
Folkestone Mrs. Carlyle accomplishes her visit to Holm Hill and
Craigenvilla ' Old Betty ' Visit to Auchtertool Home again Ill-
ness of Lord Ashburton in Paris Mrs. Carlyle's wish to go and be
useful Sad letter to ' Old Betty 'The Carlyles at the Grange
Neuralgia or rheumatism causing Mrs. Carlyle increasing pain
The accident soon after return to Cheyne Row Carlyle's account
Mr. Froude's account Mr. Lajkin's account . 267

CHAPTER XXVII
A.D. 1863-1864

Consequences The first re-appearance of the invalid Mr. and Mrs.
Froude spend a bright evening with the Carlyles Mr. Simmonds
Ominous signs Death of Grace Welsh Decreasing strength
of Mrs. Carlyle Passage from the ' Eeminiscences ' Unaidable
pain Maggie Welsh The strange nurse Invitation to St.
Leonards . . 278

CHAPTER XXVIII
A.D. 1864

Mrs. Carlyle's resolution Mr. Larkin- The terrible journey Maggie
Welsh Carlyle at Chelsea Regrets Despair The furnished
house Maggie Welsh recalled to Liverpool Mary Craik Sad
bulletins Carlyle's visits Calls of friends The sufferer too
weak to see them Mrs. Carlyle writes to her aunts Insomnia
Heavy days Futile plans of change Mrs. Carlyle's horror of
returning to Chelsea Miss Bromley's kindness Mrs. Carlyle starts
for Scotland with Dr. John Carlyle Spending a night in London
on her way Mrs. Austin Removal of Mrs. Carlyle to Holm Hill
Her dread of travelling home The return The worst over . 285

CHAPTER XXIX
A.D. 1864-1865

The brougham Mrs. Carlyle's joy at her husband's gift Illness again
Visit of the Carlyles to Lady Ashburton at Seaton, Devon
Soothing impressions Discomfort again at Cheyne Row The
' hereditary housemaid ' At Holm Hill once more Suffering
health Erskine of Linlathen Home duties at Cheyne Row
Depression Letter to Mis Jewsbury 294

xvi CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXX

A.D. 1865-1866

PAGB

Carlyle offered the Lord Kectorship of Edinburgh University His
wife's wish that he should accept it His election His journey
northwards with Professor Tyndall The last parting Professor
Huxley Mr. Erskine of Linlathen and Carlyle's brothers gathered
in Edinburgh The great day Immense success The telegram
The dinner at Forster's Interview with Professor Tyndall
Excitement The projected tea-party The afternoon drive
Sudden death of Mrs. Carlyle Carlyle receives the news at
Dumfries The unopened letter Funeral at the Abbey Kirk of
Haddington Epitaph Keflections 301

APPENDIX

I. THE WELSH ANCESTRY . . . .
II. DR. JOHN WELSH

III. THE DEATH OF DR. JOHN WELSH

IV. MRS. CARLYLE AND DE QUINCEY

V. CABLYLE'S ACCOUNT OF THE BAKING OF THE FIRST LOAF

VI. VERSES BY MRS. CARLYLE

VII. CARLYLE LOCALITIES IN EDINBURGH ....

VIII. A REMEMBRANCE OF SUNNY BANK

IX. LETTER TO MRS. CARLYLE FROM HER HUSBAND

X. EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO MR. CARLYLE ON HIS

WIFE'S DEATH 321

XI. CARLYLE AT THE GRAVE OF HIS WIFE . . . 323

INDEX 325

LIFE

OF

JANE WELSH CARLYLE

PART I
GIRLHOOD

CHAPTER I

A.D. 1801-1819

Early days in Haddington The Welsh family Dr. John Welsh His mar-
riage John Welsh of Liverpool The home at Haddington The only
child Her beauty and talent The rival grandfathers School- days at
Haddington Jeannie's love of danger and adventure Edward Irving
as private tutor Early signs of originality in the ' only child.'

HUMAN BEINGS whose gifts and qualities barely reach the
average level of mediocrity are, now and then, apt to acquire,
during their lifetime, a factitious halo of importance or of
interest,' attaching to them less through any special merit of
their own, than through some circumstance of a passing or
local nature extraneous to their veritable character. Pos-
sibly, however, it is of more frequent occurrence that those
who are really remarkable, who are undoubtedly l giants
among the pigmies ' by virtue of surpassing intellectual and
moral attributes, fail of a true appreciation among their
fellows, or receive but partial recognition, even at the hands
of those privileged to intimacy with them. It would seem
that these brilliant natures, specially open to unfavourable
influences as they too often are, seldom realise their own
highest possibilities do not come, to blossoming, but, obeying

2 GIRLHOOD

an ironical decree of fate, veil their bright presence in some
mysterious cloud of suffering or inevitable misinterpretation,
and so move amongst us, hidden from our true sight, till
the end comes, when they suddenly stand revealed to our un-
observant eyes. Such has been the case, to a large extent,
with the subject of this memoir.

Nearly a quarter of a century has passed away since the
death of Jane Welsh Carlyle, and, except among those who
knew her intimately a sadly diminished number, alas!
there has been comparatively scant recognition of her brilliant
powers and altogether unique and charming personality.
The publication by Mr. Froude, in 1883, of the * Letters and
Memorials ' gave us a revelation. These letters, so truly
remarkable for style and power, for humour, pathos and
originality, were read with the deepest interest. In their con-
ciseness and keen intellectuality, in their vivid word-painting,
in their fearless frankness, they present a Rembrandt-like
portrait of a woman, touched with strongest lights and deepest
tragic shades a faithful and an unerring portrait, self-
depicted.

Jane Baillie Welsh was born at Haddington on July 14,
1801. Her ancestors on the father's side could be traced
back to a certain famous John Welsh, minister of Ayr, who
married the youngest daughter of John Knox. Then came a
long line of John Welshes who, through many generations,
had been lairds of Craigenputtock, that ' Hill of the Hawk '
so impressed on our minds, the high moorland farm standing
bleak on the Dunscore Moors, sixteen miles from Dumfries,
with its dark sheltering pines and its few acres of grass-land
a green island set in a wilderness of heathery hills, sheep-
walk, and undrained peat-bog.

In the rebellion of 1745, the then John Welsh, laird of
Craigenputtock, was among the sympathisers, and narrowly
escaped committing himself. The son of this same laird died
young, leaving his widow at Craigenputtock with one child,
another John Welsh, whom she, by-and-by, sent to a tutor

LAIRDS OF CRAIGENPUTTOCK 3

in Nithsdale, and afterwards to Tynron school, which was in
good repute in those days. But the young laird's education
ended somewhat abruptly with his marriage, at seventeen
years of age, to a Miss Hunter, a year younger than himself,
daughter of the farmer with whom he boarded whilst attending
Tynron school. This girl-bride was the grandmother, in later
days, of Jane Baillie Welsh, and her bridegroom was after-
wards John of Penfillan that grandfather so beloved by his
bright little granddaughter.

In the early days, Craigenputtock was the home of this
very youthful couple. In that solid, gaunt farmhouse, with
a small income and many struggles, the adventurous pair
contrived to bring up their large family of fourteen children.
We are not surprised that pecuniary straits compelled the
young man to sell part of the estate, namely Nether Craigen-
puttock, in order to pay his sister's portion, and, long years
afterwards, Craigenputtock proper, to his own eldest son,
John Welsh, then Dr. John Welsh of Haddington, and
father of Jane Baillie Welsh. 1

This eldest son was born at Craigenputtock in 1776, and
early went to Edinburgh University, where his intelligence
and distinguished merits were not overlooked. He was
apprenticed to one of the celebrated brothers, John or Charles
Bell ; Mr. Froude thinks most probably to Dr. John Bell, as
Sir Charles Bell was only two years the senior of John Welsh.
When but twenty years of age, the young surgeon was re-
commended for a commission in the Perthshire Fencibles,
a post which he held for two years. In 1798 he came
to Haddington, and shortly thereafter joined Mr. George
Somner, a surgeon in that town, in partnership. The practice
was carried on very successfully, under the title of Sornner
Welsh. Mr. Somner, however, died in June 1815, Dr. Welsh
having previously assumed as a partner Mr. Thomas How den,
a former apprentice of the firm. An annuity of 200L a year
was paid by Dr. Welsh to his retired partner for some years,

1 See Appendix, Note 1, on the Welsh Ancestry.

P2

GIRLHOOD

and on the death of Dr. Welsh, Mr. Howden assumed as a
partner Benjamin Welsh, M.D., the younger brother. This
partnership continued till 1826, when Dr. Benjamin Welsh
died.

Dr. John Welsh was a surgeon of great skill, always
ready to relieve suffering humanity ; he was greatly loved
and esteemed by all who came in contact with him. He
was a man of fine disposition, stately presence and gentle
manners, unselfish and noble-minded. He rapidly made a
fortune, and, as we have seen, in order to help his numerous
brothers and sisters, actually purchased the family estate of
Craigenputtock before it should come to him by inheritance,
paying off all encumbrances, with the intention of retiring to
it himself, on relinquishing his medical practice. He, no
doubt, looked forward to carrying on the family tradition by
settling in his birthplace, and in due time leaving another
John Welsh there to succeed him. But this was never
realised.

In the year 1800 Dr. John Welsh married. He chose a
wife who was also a Welsh, though the families were entirely
unrelated. Miss Grace Welsh boasted as famous an ancestry
as himself, if tradition could be trusted. Dr. John Welsh
could trace his descent to John Knox, and the lady he
married traced her pedigree, through her mother, once the
beautiful Miss Baillie, back to William Wallace. Grace
Welsh's father, Walter Welsh, was a prosperous stock-
farmer, then living at Capelgill, on Moffat Water. When his
daughter Grace, or, as the Scotch sometimes call this pretty
name, c Grizzie,' married her young doctor, and went to live
at Haddington, old Walter moved into Nithsdale, and took
the farm then known as Templand, near Penfillan. Thus the
two grandfathers of the yet unborn Jane Baillie Welsh,
connected only through the marriage of their children, be-
came close neighbours and friends.

The beautiful Miss Baillie, Walter Welsh's wife, died
early. She it was who came of Wallace. It was a son of

THE DOCTOR AND HIS BRIDE 5

hers and Walter's, another John Welsh, who went into busi-
ness in Liverpool, where, after a time of prosperity, he fell into
trouble through the dishonesty of a partner, who, alas ! was
also his brother-in-law-elect. Left to bankruptcy, with a debt
of 12,OOOZ., John Welsh gallantly remade his fortune, and
after eight hard years' struggle invited his creditors to dinner,
and each man found under his cover a cheque for the full
amount of his claim. There must have been good fighting
material, and honour withal, in the Welsh blood that came of
Wallace.

But let me turn to the home in Haddington, where
Dr. John Welsh brought his beautiful bride; for, by all
accounts, Mrs. Welsh must have been a lovely woman, tall,
aquiline, and commanding.' In character she seems to have
been emotional and sensitive, easily saddened, and variable,
perhaps, in her moods. More is known of Dr. John Welsh,
who must in every way have realised his wife's preconceived
ideals, of which, doubtless, she had many and lofty ones.
From the description of him handed down by those who knew
him, he was of noble, distinguished presence, tall, highly
graceful, self-possessed, dignified, strikingly handsome, with
black hair, bright hazel eyes, and lively and expressive features.
More noteworthy, however, were his moral character and
his medical sagacity, which combined in the consistent and
honourable man, faithful at all points, and universally esteemed.
The home in Haddington was not only comfortable and well
appointed elegance and refinement were added to ease of
circumstances.

Dr. Welsh led a busy life in his profession, his fatigues
being much increased by the many miles of riding incidental
to a country practice, which caused him to have never less
than three strong saddle-horses at his command. He was
punctual to a minute in the keeping of appointments, in-
flexible where right was concerned, and possessed of the strong
pride of independence. He was a loving and wise husband
to his beautiful Grace, and a devoted father to the one child

6 GIRLHOOD

born to them the little Jeannie, whose birth, on July 14,
1801, has been already chronicled.

This only child must have shown to the eyes of those
who loved her, very early indications of her uncommon nature
and qualities points no less noticeable than, and far out-
weighing in importance, the unusual beauty apparent from
the beginning. She was the child of remarkable people,
and traced her ancestry through generations of original and
strikingly superior characters ; it was not wonderful that she
should present a remarkable, almost unique type in her own
person. Her curling black hair, large black eyes, now shining
with soft mockery, now softly sad ; clear pale skin, broad
forehead, and nose the least bit retrousse, give us a picture
of this arch, gay, mobile little creature, with her slight, airy,
and graceful figure in harmony with the spiritual face.
Those who knew her, speak of her as beautiful to the very
end of her life. Such beauty as could call forth this uni-
versal tribute must have been undeniably pronounced. Such
beauty as could survive in triumph the long martyrdom of
suffering to which this bright creature was predestined,
must have traced its truest source to the spirit within, whence
it could still shine forth amid ruins. Even in early childhood
it was felt by those around her that the most remarkable gifts
of this fairy-like Jeannie were those of the mind. Her extreme
intellectual vivacity startled them all. And no wonder ! It
does not seem, however, that the lively child was spoiled by
over-indulgence, had the mother inclined to that fault.

Dr. John Welsh l watched with ceaseless care over this
precious only child, and strict obedience was the rule in the
Haddington household. Still, there was scope enough for
natural playfulness. The nearness of two grandfathers must
have offered many opportunities for the little lady, and she
was a special favourite of Walter of Templand, whom she
occasionally visited. Her ' little name ' of ' Pen ' meant
' Penfillan Jeannie,' by which old Walter always called her.
1 See Appendix, Note 2, on Dr. John Welsh.

A PRECOCIOUS CHILD 7

No doubt there was a certain rivalry between the two grand-
fathers in attracting the notice of this precocious and gifted
little child; a born coquette we may suppose her, even from
her babyhood, with that wonderful caprice of baby-girls
so intensely amusing to grown-up people, so half-pathetic
and altogether human when considered from some points of
view. Who has not seen the dimpled despot of a year
old, safely enthroned in the arm of mother or father, give or
passionately refuse the kiss, contract the whole face with
sudden frown, or dispense bewitching smiles, and offer or
sharply withdraw the dimpled rose-leaf hand ?

Some such picture might be drawn of this baby Jeannie,
this only one, this sole tyrant in the house at Haddington. Old
Walter had certain peculiarities of speech, had a ' burr ' in pro-
nouncing his c r,' and spoke in the old style generally, which
was duly noted by the quick little child. When about six years
old, her grandfather had taken her with him for a ride on a
quiet little pony. When they had gone as far as was desirable,
Walter, in his own characteristic dialect, said : ' Now we will
go back, by so-and-so, to vah-chry the shane ! ' (vary the scene).
1 And where did you ride to, Pen ? ' asked the company at
dinner. We rode to so, and then to so,' she answered
punctually, ' and then returned by so to vah-chry the shane \ '
At which, no doubt, old Walter joined the general gaiety,
with that laugh of his characterised later on by Carlyle as
one of the prettiest laughs in the world, with ( something
audible in it, as of flutes and harps, as if the vanquished them-
selves were invited or compelled to partake in the triumph.'

Something of old Walter's nature was, undoubtedly,
inherited by Jeannie Welsh. He is described by Carlyle
as of 'hot, impatient temper, breaking out into flashes of
lightning if you touched him the wrong way ; but they were
flashes only, never bolts.' A lovable man he must have been,
with his ' laughing eyes, beautiful, light humour, and features,
massive yet soft, so quickly lighted up by a bright, dimpling
chuckle.

8

GIRLHOOD

Less is known of Jeannie's other grandfather, John of
Penfillan, who is described as a singular and interesting
man, devout, upright, honourably respected and esteemed,
and certainly beloved by Jeannie as she grew older. His
marriage into the Hunter family had possibly failed to
develop what was most attractive in him, as we are told that
Jeannie never liked the Hunters, and used in later days to
divide her uncles into ' Welshes ' (these were uncles on her
mother's side of the house) and 'Welshes with a cross of
Hunter' (these were the members of the Penfillan family).

Time passed on, and Jeannie began to attend Haddington
school, which stood only a furlong from her father's house.
Here boys and girls were taught, but in separate school-
rooms for the most part ; only arithmetic and algebra,' in
which the little girl became specially proficient, they learned
together.

Jeannie had many devoted slaves among the boys. But
she was of a fiery temper, and could not always keep the
peace. Differences arose now and then. A lad one day was
impertinent. She doubled her little fist, hit him hard on the
nose, and made it bleed. The penalty for fighting in school
was flogging. At the noise of the scuffle the master came
in, saw the marks of the fray, and asked who was the
delinquent. All were silent. The boys could not tell tales
of a girl. The master threatened to thrash the whole school,
when the small Jeannie looked up, and said : ' Please, sir, it
was I ! ' The master's gravity gave way, and, laughing, he
told her she was ' a little deevil,' and sent her back to the
girls' room.

There is a lifelike description of Jeannie about this time
from Carlyle's pen. She may have been seven or eight years
old, and was attending the Haddington school.

Thither daily, at an early hour, might be seen my little
Jeannie, tripping nimbly and daintily along, satchel in hand,
dressed by her mother, who had a great talent that way, in taste-
ful simplicity neat bit of pelisse, light blue sometimes, fastened

EARLY AMBITIONS 9

with black belt ; dainty little cap, perhaps beaver-skin, with flap
turned up, and, I think, one at least with modest little plume
in it.

The child was ambitious as well as keenly intelligent.
She rapidly mastered the ordinary branches of learning, and
demanded to * learn Latin like a boy ! ' But there was a
difference of opinion on the subject at home. Mrs. Welsh
opposed her ; but her father, who thought well of her talents,
was willing she should have her way. Jeannie took the
matter into her own hands. She found out a lad in Hadding-
ton school who taught her to repeat a Latin noun of the first
declension. Armed with this weapon, she hid herself, one
night when she was supposed to be in bed, under the draw-
ing-room table. When opportunity offered, her small voice,
from under the tablecover, broke silence with 'penna, a
pen ; pennce, of a pen,' &c. And, amid the general amusement,
she crept out, ran to her father, and repeated her simple
petition, ' I want to learn Latin ; please let me be a boy ! '
and was no doubt caught up in his arms amid kisses, which
settled the Latin question.

But this desire for manly learning, and this ability to
dispense salutary chastisement with her little doubled fist,
did not preclude Jeannie's very feminine qualities from early
declaring themselves. It was a woman's soul, a woman's
nature, essentially, in this Ariel of a child with the deep
dark eyes and fiery temper. A very characteristic anecdote
of her childhood finds place here.

There was a dancing-school ball in Haddington, when Jeannie,
then not more than six, had been selected to perform some { pas
seul,' beautiful and difficult ] she was anxious in her little heart
to do it well. Dressed to perfection, she was carried across the
muddy street in a clothes basket. All went well till her turn
came. The little child stood waiting the music. Music began.
Alas ! the wrong music ; impossible to dance that c pas seul ; to
it. She made signs of distress music ceased took counsel, and
began again : again wrong, hopelessly, flatly impossible. Beau-

10

GIRLHOOD

fciful little Jane, alone against the world, forsaken by the music,
but not by her presence of mind, plucked up her little skirt,
flung it over her head, and curtseying in that veiled manner,
withdrew from the adventure, amid general applause.

There is great significance in this incident : the brave,
dignified reception of defeat, the controlling of the child-
heart in its bursting pain of disappointment, the ready device
to hide the tears of mortification all these were unusual
signs in a child of tender years, when most youngsters
would have openly blubbered. And perhaps mothers would
rather see their own little ones comfort themselves thus.

Jeannie Welsh could not so disburden her child-heart!
Later on in her life, when its deep music went hopelessly
wrong, when it became manifestly impossible to fit in its
difficult evolutions to any harmony of existing accompani-
ment, when preconceived schemes were defeated, and the
eager heart could plan no more, it was granted to her,
vanquished, to withdraw swiftly, silently into impenetrable
shelter. Now the child-spirit was endlessly brave, and
feared nothing. Very amusing is the account of her attack
on a horrid and alarming turkey-cock she was apt to
encounter at a gate through which she passed on her way to
school. Her alarm at this hideous bird grew almost over-
powering, and she hated the thought of living in fear of him.
On one occasion, as she passed this gate, several labourers and
boys were near, who seemed to enjoy the thought of seeing the
ill-conducted bird run at her. Jeannie's spirit was roused.
She gathered herself together, and made up her mind. The
turkey ran at her, gobbling and swelling ; she suddenly
darted at him, seized him by the throat, and swung him
round no small feat for a slender little lady of her age.

But from the first she loved a sense of danger. Near the
school was the Nungate Bridge, whose arch overhangs the
water at a considerable height. There was a narrow ledgo
on the parapet, the crossing of which was an uncommonly
dangerous feat, to which the boys now and then dared one

MASTER AND PUPIL II

another. One fine morning Jeannie got up early, went to
the Nungate Bridge, lay down on her face on this ledge, and
crawled from one end to the other, at the imminent risk of
breaking her neck by a fall into the river beneath. This
exploit, with others like it, must be taken as plain proof of
a dauntless courage which gave way only under trial of
unusual severity, and presented to the end some of the old
daring, which was never extinguished altogether.

With such energy of character, it is not surprising that at
nine years old Jeannie was reading ' Virgil.' Her first teacher
was Edward Irving, the Annandale youth, whose brilliant
promise was not yet darkened by the shadow of disaster.
Irving had been sent in 1810, by two learned professors,
to teach school in Haddington. Fresh from collegiate
honours, attractive and gifted, Irving was soon intimate in
Dr. Welsh's family, which took the lead in Haddington,
socially as well as intellectually. Dr. Welsh recognised
Irving's fine qualities, and treated him as an elder son. He
was trusted with the private education of Jeannie, as well as
with the management of the school. He carefully watched over
the little girl's studies, and would take her out on fine nights
to show her the stars, and teach her wonderful things about
them. More interesting master and pupil surely were seldom
known than these two, both so ignorant of the wild and dark
future looming ahead of them. These peaceful, unawakened
days in sleepy little Haddington must often have come back
in memory to them both in the days when the 4 tangled skein
of life ' proved utterly confused.

Edward Irving, when appointed master of what was called
the mathematical school in Haddington, was, as Mrs. Oliphant
tells us, between seventeen and eighteen years of age, a hand-
some, ruddy youth, boyish still, in spite of his inches ; ardent
and full of hope. His personality was at all times a striking
one, his manner, in these early days, frank and winning ; he
was, indeed, singularly attractive. Born in August 1792, he
had been sent when yet almost a child to the University of

12

GIRLHOOD

Edinburgh, and had done well ; but it early became necessary
that he should be placed in some position of usefulness, and,
recommended by Sir John Leslie and Professor Christison,
he obtained the mastership in the new school in Haddington,
his first appointment. He was well able to give what was
then considered the decidedly masculine education desired by
Dr. John Welsh for his only daughter. Such an education
would not provoke comment in these days, when girls aspire
to, and attain, university honours.

It was otherwise in Jeannie Welsh's childhood, and
Mrs. Welsh considered Latin and mathematics sadly out of
place in the little girl's education. Herself an accomplished
and somewhat intellectual woman, she had kept to the old
traditions, and desired nothing further for Jeannie. But the
father divined his child's unusual capacity, and determined
that it should have scope. The opportunity of private
teaching from the young divinity student was all that could
be desired. Irving was expected to leave a daily report of
his pupil's work and progress. It is recorded that on one
occasion, when the work had been eminently unsatisfactory,
he paused remorsefully, and at last, with a pitiful look at the
eager face beside him, cried, ' Jane ! my heart is broken, but
it must be pessima' a terrible blow to the small offender,
no doubt, but more painful to the tutor.

Edward Irving was then a young man, his pupil only a
child, but doubtless those subtle links of sympathy which
bound these two natures so closely together in later life were
formed in those early days, when the impetuous, bright child
sought her knowledge from the tall, handsome youth, and
ripened her powers under the deep interest which entered
into his teachings. Jeannie worked with eagerness and
concentration. She would rise at five in the morning to
study, and in the fear of sleeping too long, would tie a weight
to one of her ankles that she might awake. She was at this
time a most healthy little girl, but did much to injure her
health, in her zeal and her ignorance. She took greatly to

THE 'PAGAN* PHASE 13

mathematics, and would, if undetected, sit up half the night
over a problem. A story is told of her being greatly per-
plexed by a proposition in Euclid, and going to bed at last
in despair over it. In a dream, it is said, Jeannie got up
and did it, and went to bed again. And in the morning,
when the consciousness of the dream had vanished, there
stood the solution of the problem as testimony of what she
had done. No need to point out that Jeannie's brain, eager
little soul, was too active and such it was to the end !

Under Irving's tutorship she advanced rapidly in Latin,
and the effect of ' Yirgil ' and other studies was, she says in
one of her old note-books, to change her religion, and make
her into a sort of pagan.

It is strictly true (she says), and it was not alone my religion
that these studies influenced, but my whole being was imbued
with them. Would I prevent myself from doing a foolish or
cowardly thing, I didn't say to myself, ' You mustn't, or if you
do you will go to hell hereafter/ nor yet, ' If you do you will
be whipt here ; ' but I said to myself, simply and grandly, ' A
Roman would not have done it/ and that sufficed under ordi-
nary temptations. . . . But the classical world in which I lived
and moved was best indicated in the tragedy of my doll. It had
been intimated to me by one whose wishes were law [probably
Edward Irving], that a young lady in ' Virgil ' should, for con-
sistency's sake, drop her doll. So the doll, being judged, must be
made an end of ; and I, ' doing what I would with my own/ like
the Duke of Newcastle, quickly decided how. She should end
as Dido ended, that doll as the doll of a young lady in * Yirgil '
should end. With her dresses, which were many and sumptuous,
her four-posted bed, a faggot or two of cedar allumettes, a few
sticks of cinnamon and a nutmeg, I, non ignara futuri, constructed
her funeral pile sub auras, of course ; and this new Dido,
being placed in the bed with my help, spoke through my lips the
sad last words of Dido the First, which I had then all by heart.
. . . The doll having thus spoken, pallida morte futura, kindled
the pile, and stabbed herself with a penknife, by way of Tyrian
sword. Then, however, in the moment of seeing my poor dolJ

I 4 GIRLHOOD

blaze up for, being stuffed with bran, she took fire, and was all
over in no time in that supreme moment my affection for her
blazed up also, and^ I shrieked, and would have saved her, and
could not, and went on shrieking till everybody within hearing
flew to me and bore me off in a plunge of tears an epitome of
most of one's 'heroic sacrifices,' it strikes me, magnanimously
resolved on, ostentatiously gone about, repented of at the last
moment, and bewailed with an outcry. Thus was my inner
world at that period three-fourths old Roman and one- fourth
old Fairy.

It is hardly fair to relate this remarkable and touching
story, with the addition of bitter comment added by after-
wisdom and experience. Mothers, as a rule, would prefer their
little girls to adopt a less heroic, simpler, and more merely
mischievous method of destroying their dolls. I cannot
but suppose Irving to have been the person whose wishes
were law in the matter of the doll. So harsh an edict
sounds less like the father than the schoolmaster. The note-
book which contains this tale of the funeral pyre contains
also a long story of her first child-love, told with infinite
grace.

When Jeannie was fourteen she wrote a tragedy, with
certain youthful faults, it is true, but still showing ability
that was remarkable for her age. This was her only
dramatic effort ; but she often wrote verses, inheriting this
pleasant gift from her mother. Mrs. Welsh's verses seem to
have been simply soft, sweet, and musical, after the manner,
perhaps, of poor 4 L. E. L.' ; while there was depth and power,
and altogether wider intellectual range, in those of Jeannie
herself. The verses written in later life, and sent to Lord
Jeffrey, are perfect in literary form, and possess the higher
charm of strong pathos. But there was never anything
commonplace in Jane Welsh.

In considering the home influences under which she
spent her early years, I cannot imagine that the relation
between mother and daughter was perfectly harmonious.

FAMILY PEACE DIFFICULT 15

Mrs. Welsh was capricious and arbitrary, beautiful, impul-
sive, and not overwise perhaps. Her father-in-law, John of
Penfillan, is reported to have observed her ( in fifteen different
humours in one evening ; ' though this was, probably, to some
extent, mere satirical exaggeration. Still, there was, pre-
sumably, some basis for the remark, and fewer humours than
fifteen will result in collision in family life, where the elements
are strong, fiery, and few. Mrs. Welsh probably shared
the faults of many beautiful women was somewhat hard to
please, variable, not easy to live calmly and evenly with.
And as she grew older she may have been exacting, un-
reasonable in some respects, though always of good and
exemplary conduct.

When Jeannie was a girl, the two strong wills must
certainly have clashed now and then, and the result would
hardly show itself in meek filial submission. But there was
a deep, almost a passionate, attachment between the mother
and daughter, a fact not in any way inconsistent with the
want of perfect harmony, but rather explanatory of it : as it
is only between those who love each other that such critical
sensitiveness is ever developed. Indifference is an easier
atmosphere in which to live at peace ; and no indifference
was possible between these two natures of quick affections
and quick tempers. The experience is a common one, and
readily understood.

16

GIRLHOOD

CHAPTER II

A.D. 1819-1821

Strong attachment between the father and daughter The last talk Sud-
den illness and death of Dr. John Welsh Jeannie's 'Paganism'
Serious thoughts 'Early letters' to Eliza Stodart Boarding-school in
Edinburgh Active tendencies Teaching Characteristics more plainly
shown The loss of the father's influence Haddington felt to be dull
Early lovers Power of language.

BUT Jeannie's strongest attachment was to her father.
Dr. John Welsh must have inspired, not only deep, admiring
reverence in his child, but a love that was truly the strongest
feeling in her heart, the master-passion in her young nature
for many years one of those unique sympathies, never
to be replaced, even by tender ties of another kind. This
loyal nature of Jane Welsh preserved through life the fresh-
ness of these natural affections ; could never bear to see even
the chimney-tops of Templand, after her mother had died
there, and returned to mourn at her father's grave in Had-
dington, thirty years after his death, with all the pain and
faithful love that a recent loss could have called forth.

She lost her father just at the time when his influence
would have been most valuable and active in forming her
character. It was when Jane Welsh was little over eighteen
years of age that, one September afternoon, she had an ever-
memorable drive with her father, who had a distant patient to
visit. It was not unusual for him to take his daughter with
him on these country drives. But this was destined to be a
special day ; for it was, in fact, the end of that close and
loving intercourse of father and daughter, and not, as the
eager girl supposed, only the beginning of a deeper and yet

THE FIRST GRIEF 17

dearer link between them; for on this day the usually
silent man spoke much, and long, and eloquently, to his
Jeannie, and with a depth of feeling which struck her, at the
time, as something new and impressive.

He told her she was a good girl, capable of being useful and
precious to him and the circle she would live in ; that she must
summon her utmost judgment and seriousness to choose her path,
and be what he expected of her ; that he did not think she had
yet seen the life-partner that would be worthy of her in short,
that he expected her to be wise, as well as good-looking and
good : all this in a tone and manner that filled her poor little
heart with surprise, and a kind of sacred joy, coming from the
man she, of all men, revered. 1

These fatherly counsels, so heartfelt, so entirely suited to
Jeannie's needs, were all she ever had from that time for
ever. He had spoken his last to her ; on the morrow, possibly
on the same evening, Dr. Welsh developed symptoms of
malignant typhoid fever, caught from a patient. The illness
being of so deadly a kind, he at once, with a physician's
instinct, gave orders that Jeannie should not enter his room.
Unselfish to the last, he denied himself the solace of her
bright presence. The girl, in her violent grief and anguish,
did, however, on one occasion, force herself into the sick-room,
but he ordered her to leave it, and she obeyed. But all that
night she lay on the stairs, outside his door, in agony. On
the fourth day he passed away. The treatment of this
terrible disease was but imperfectly understood at that time,
even by the best medical authorities. A brother of Dr. John
Welsh, himself a medical man, was called in, and, in his
anxiety to save life, had bled the sufferer profusely, which
may or may not have hastened the fatal event. Thus, at
forty-three years of age, Dr. John Welsh was cut off, in
September 1819, and the home at Haddington broken and
changed. 2

1 Reminiscences, ii. 94.

2 Appendix, Note 3, on Dr. John Welsh's Illness and Death.

i8

GIRLHOOD

Before sorrow had been tasted, the lively girl had spoken
laughingly of her ' paganism ; J but other thoughts now
quickened within "her. As is often the case with bright and
mobile natures, there lay in Jane Welsh a real seriousness,
too deep for words, and only evident when she was stirred by
passionate emotion. Writing to Mrs. Welsh of Penfillan a
fortnight after Dr. Welsh's death, she says :

This has indeed been an unexpected and overwhelming blow.
My father's death was a calamity I almost never thought of. If
on any occasion the idea did present itself to me, it was imme-
diately repelled as being too dreadful to be realised for many,
many years, and too painful to occupy any present place in my
thoughts. Until this misfortune fell upon me I never knew
what it was to be really unhappy. . , .

You, my dear grandmother, have had many trials ; but, if 1
mistake not, you will still remember the bitterness of the first,
above all others ; you will still be able to recall the feeling
of disappointment and despair which you experienced when
calamity awoke you from your dream of security, and dispelled
the infatuation which led you to expect that you alone were to be
exempted from this world's misery. But you are good, and I
am judging of your feelings by my own. When young as I am,
perhaps you were not, as I am, thoughtless, and unprepared for
the chastisement of the Divine Power.

Here we find the little formality of expression induced by
the fact of writing to an elderly relative, though the pain of
the young heart, even here, speaks clearly through the care-
ful phrases. A much more natural expression of grief is
found in the first of that most valuable collection of ' Early
Letters of Jane Welsh Oarlyle,' edited by David G. Eitchie,
Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College, Oxford. These letters, the
bulk of which are addressed to Mr. Bitchie's great-aunt,
form a most important addition to our knowledge of Jane
Welsh. In fact, they represent absolutely all the actual
material for any account of her during the years when most
of them were written. And they are highly significant, as
well as characteristic.

A CHERISHED FRIEND 19

Miss Eliza Stodart, great-aunt of the editor, was a niece of
Mr. Bradfute, a partner in the firm of Bell and Bradfute,
of Edinburgh. The young lady lived with her uncle at
22 George Square, and there was a very close friendship
between her and Jane Walsh. The friendship included Mr.
Bradfute, who is often named i Bradie ' in these letters, and
has sundry kisses sent him in Jane's letters to Eliza, or her
' Dear Bess/ or t Dear Angel Bessy,' as she often calls her
friend.

It is only since the publication of the f Early Letters '
that Mr. D. G. Eitchie has received information which
clears up a point that was doubtful in Jane Welsh's earlier
history. A correspondent Mr. A. K. Mackenzie, of Ravel-
rig, Balerno, Midlothian places it beyond all doubt that
Jane Welsh was at a boarding-school in Edinburgh. Mr.
Mackenzie's wife's aunt, Mrs. Walrond, of Calder Park
(maiden name, Jane Hastings), was at Miss Hall's boarding-
school in Edinburgh with Jane Welsh. c Miss Hall's,' writes
Mr. Mackenzie, l was a well-known school, latterly in Great
King Street ; but as that street could scarcely have been built
before 1820, it must have been elsewhere before that.' Here
is one little point in Jane Welsh's history fortunately cleared
up. Evidently Mrs. Welsh had been anxious that her
brilliant daughter should have what was then termed a
'finishing' an opportunity, namely, of acquiring certain
feminine accomplishments and elegances not easily attain-
able in the Haddington school, yet needful to blend with the
rather masculine education she had already received.

We find a confirmation of this episode of 'boarding-
school ' in an allusion in a letter written by Mrs. Carlyle, and
dated Craigenputtock, November 1829. She writes to Miss
Stodart : ' I liked Edinburgh last time as well as I did at
sixteen ! (you know how well that was), and cried as much
at leaving it.' We see the reference now, and how natural
it was that Jeannie Welsh, while at Miss Hall's school, maj
have occasionally gone ' to 22 George Square on Saturdays,

c 2

20

GIRLHOOD

and taken her gloves and stockings to be mended,' for this
was always the tradition in the Stodart family, and appears
well supported by fact. This fixes the date of ' boarding-
school' as probably 1817-18. No doubt those were happy
days. Eliza Stodart, the recipient of Jane Welsh's early
letters, was evidently much trusted and loved by her
friend.

The grief of the young is sharp and bitter. We do
not wonder to find Jane Welsh cast down by her father's
death, and passionately sad. She describes the first drive
to Haddington Church after the funeral; the hatefulness
of the changed yet familiar aspect of the scene. Colour
and warmth had left the well-known surroundings looked on
by those haggard young eyes. c I looked out only once,' she
says, 'and I thought the stones were covered with snow,
everything looked so white and bleak ! ' And this was in
early, golden autumn days. In her next letter she says,
'God bless you, and preserve you from such a loss as
mine ! '

But hers was not a nature to sink into apathy and mere
selfish repining. It was not long ere her instincts of activity
reasserted themselves in the efforts she made to teach her
Aunt Elizabeth French, drawing, and geography. Two
other pupils, young girls, joined in receiving the lessons.
Nor was the fair instructress herself idle in self-improve-
ment, but energetically studied Italian and French, always
with the sense that it was something done in memory of her
1 adored father,' and l first blessing ! '

Jane Welsh was keenly sensible of the advantages she
owed to the sound education with which her father had pro-
vided her. The habits of study in which she had been
trained were now priceless, and helped her to begin life with-
out that father, whose life had such a hold upon her own.
The mother and daughter continued for some time at Had-
dington, able to live in comfort, even with elegance. After
settling a small annuity on his widow, Dr. Welsh left every-

DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER 21

thing belonging to him to his daughter. Thus she was, in
a moderate sense, an heiress, and the object of numberless
matrimonial designs and speculations.

The withdrawal of the father's influence while she was yet
so young, at such a critical time of life for the development
of character, was a great drawback to her. Mrs, Welsh,
sunk in her own grief, possessed but little influence on her
daughter, whose esprit fort rapidly asserted itself, and re-
sulted in one of the most marked individualities ever clothed
in delicate and fascinating exterior.

The early letters to Eliza Stodart show a power of sarcasm,
a caustic wit ; waywardness too, and impatience. The lovely
girl is sharp with her pen, presumably no less so with her
tongue. She displays a strong Scotch plainness and hardness
of speech, a cutting, common-sense judgment, and was not
apt to attribute lofty or beautiful motives to any one, be their
conduct what it might. The shrewdness and incisive wit
would have been altogether detestable, taken apart from the
brilliant intellectual gifts and the truly feminine charm of
the lovely girl who had such an armoury of powerful weapons
at command. It was a strange combination, one that boded
ill for the future.

Her uncompromising habit of denunciation was manifest
even in these early days. It was at first merely that won-
derful, nntempered severity of youth, which disposes of the
claims of others with such triumphant despatch. It might,
under other auspices, have mellowed into a gentle and wise
toleration ; but that was not to be.

Jane Welsh was effusive at times, but not tender. Her
health, never robust, was always delicately balanced, her tem-
perament too finely strung for undisturbed normal physical
well-being. She was fiery, quick, and keen. Her untried
heart was ignorant as yet of the sacred strength of that love
or divine charity which ' beareth all things, hopeth all things,
suffereth long, and is kind.' Hers was quite another idea
of life and its potentialities. The world her little world-

22

GIRLHOOD

sphere was to be subjugated, made to bend low to that
imperious will of hers, and her little foot was to be firmly
planted on its neck. And the thought of love and marriage
was much in her mind. It is satisfactory to find, however,
that the ' Robert ' who is described as ' looking divine ' was

an uncle, not a lover. ' Benjamin B ' she calls c one of the

most frank, unaffected young men I have seen/ And a year
or two later she speaks of meeting him ' on the opposite bank
of the river/

Let any human being (she says) conceive a more tantalising
situation ! I saw him, and durst not make any effort to attract his
attention, though, had my will been consulted in the matter, to
have met him eyes to eyes and soul to soul I would have swam
ay, swam across, at the risk of being dosed with water-gruel for
a month to come ! . . .

Providence has surely some curious design respecting this
youth and me ! It was on my birthday we parted it was on my
birthday we met, or (but for that confounded river) should have
met again.

This letter is addressed to Eliza Stodart from Templand,
the home of Walter Welsh, with whom his widowed daughter
was staying. Jane adds, in her plain, uncompromising
frankness of language : ' I wonder what the devil keeps my
mother here! ' Years afterwards, in 1825, Jane Welsh writes
to Eliza Stodart, betraying at once her feminine unstability,
and her knowledge of Latin : i " Times are changed, and we

are changed in them." Mr. Benjamin B is become the

most disagreeable person on this planet/ This little episode
is taken as one of many.

But we return to the year 1820, when, after a journey to
Liverpool, where some time was spent with her mother's
brother, Mr. John Welsh, and other visits involving an
absence of some months, Mrs. Welsh and her daughter
returned to their lonely home in Haddington. The restless
spirit of Jane Welsh was sorely tried by this return to
familiar things.

EARLY DISSATISFACTIONS 23

Well, my beloved cousin (she writes to Miss Stodart), here
I am once more at the bottom of the pit of dulness, hemmed in
all round, straining my eyeballs and stretching my neck to no
purpose.

Was ever starling in a more desperate plight ? But I will
get out by the wife of Job, I will !

An eloquent abuse of her native town is followed by :

After all, there is much in it that I love. I love the bleaching-
green, where I used to caper and tumble and roll ... in the days
of my wee existence ; and the school-house, where I carried away
prizes . . . ; and, above all, I feel an affection for a field by the
side of the river, where corn is growing now, and where a hay-
rick once stood. You remember it. ... I was very happy then.
All my little world lay glittering in tinsel at my feet ! But years
have passed over it since and storm after storm has stripped it
of much of its finery.

We quote this to illustrate the character which, at twenty
years old, could describe the scenes of her childhood as c glit-
tering in tinsel.' Why not have called them pure gold ?
What a scepticism of happiness is betrayed in this expression !
what absence of the heart-free, sound, wholesome joy of life !
The passage is most significant.

In this very letter the young girl's mood promptly
changes, as she goes on to discuss ' my quondam lover, the
" goosish " man,' whose attempt at serious wooing was met
with scorn and derision. He had arrived in hot haste, ' twelve
hours after he received my answer to his letter . . . and in
the morning sent a few nonsensical lines to announce his
nonsensical arrival.' Poor young man ! His chance was indeed
small. Little wonder that, in his nervous trepidation before
this beautiful young angel with the two-edged sword, his
power of expression should fail him, and he should gravely
announce having been at a party some days before l with
his arm under his hat,' and, desperately correcting himself,
* with his head under his arm ; ' the lively girl's comment
being, ' it was of very little consequence where his head was ! '
This ill-starred suitor found that even two waistcoatSj one of

24 GIRLHOOD

figured velvet, and one of sky-blue satin, failed to plead his
cause. Gossamer silk hose and morocco slippers were all in
vain ; he departed, presumably ' a sadder and wiser man.'
Jane Welsh adds : ' A visit from a man with any brains in his
head would really be an act of mercy to us here.' With what
emphasis that wish was presently to be granted !

We may note that the ' cousinship ' with Eliza Stodart
seems to have been merely a term of good-will and liking, as
Jane Welsh always mentions Mr. Bradfute as ' your uncle.'

It would seem that Jane Welsh was not inclined to
domestic interests in these days. She manifests much
impatience at being made the medium of some homely and
housewifely messages from Mrs. Welsh to her ' Angel Bessie.'
Advice as to the quantity of sugar needful to make marma-
lade, and directions with regard to the management of sick
hens, cause quite an outburst of wrath in the young amanu-
ensis. After the words, * Moreover Oh ! she has plenty of
cursed, ugly, wee black " pigs " [jars for the said marmalade]
at your service,' she adds, ' Not one word more will I write
for her, by ! '

Even in those days this must have been unusual language
for a young lady to use. And the existence of it, in many of
these early letters, must guard us from supposing that Jane
Welsh learned her use of expletives and her tremendous
force of language from Carlyle, whom she had as yet never
seen. This peculiarity of strong language, far stronger than
occasion demanded, was one of those extraordinary resem-
blances between these two persons, who, while presenting
some noticeable points of difference, were yet strangely,
altogether unaccountably alike in many ways. With them
both it was the fortiter in re, not the suaviter in modo, which
ruled their outward manifestations. In them both lay deep
tenderness the deepest ill-developed, and huddled into a
corner, its diviner outcomes smothered and choked ; but it
was there, and at moments of strong emotion it came forth,
full-grown, unmistakable in its strength and beauty.

CHAPTER III

A.D. 1821

First meeting with Thomas Carlyle Introduction by Edward Irving
The May evening Irving's attachment to Miss Welsh Carlyle and
Margaret Gordon Isabella Martin George Kennie Miss Welsh's early
impressions of Carlyle Literary ambitions and projects Irving's en-
gagement to Miss Isabella Martin Miss Welsh's hesitation in accepting
Carlyle as a lover Miss Welsh's readings of Kousseau George Kennie's
departure Visit of Carlyle to Haddington Possibilities.

BUT to return to Jane Welsh. It was late in the month
of May 1821 that Thomas Carlyle appeared on the scene.
Mrs. Welsh had given Edward Irving leave to bring his
gifted friend over to Haddington and introduce him. This,
accordingly, was carried out by Irving on one of his occasional
holiday sallies from Glasgow, now the scene of his labours.
It was at Haddington he sometimes recruited his strength,
and he was always a welcome guest in Mrs. Welsh's house,
for the sake of old times. It all came about in the most
natural manner possible. Irving was now engaged to be
married : his betrothed, Miss Martin, being the daughter of
the Rev. John Martin, minister of the Established Church in
Kirkcaldy, where Irving had taken an appointment as school-
master on leaving Haddington. It was natural that Irving
should wish to introduce Thomas Carlyle to these dear, valued
friends of his. He knew how keenly the intellectual Miss
Welsh would enjoy the original genius of his friend. And
Irving was proud of Carlyle, and no doubt longed to show
him off where he was sure of appreciation.

But let us consider the real position of these three people

26

GIRLHOOD

their inner standpoint, not apparent in their outward
seeming. Thomas Carlyle, the rugged, fiery peasant, had
passed through his one tender passage, his love for Margaret
Gordon, to whom, but for the interposition of friends, he would
probably have been affianced. She must have loved him, to
read his powers so clearly in an exterior that ill expressed
him. 'Genius will render you great/ she had written to
him. ' May virtue render you beloved ! Remove the awful
distance between you and ordinary men by kind and gentle
manners ! ' An angel could not have counselled Carlyle
better. Small wonder that, many years later, in 1840, when
he met her, then Lady Bannerman, riding in Hyde Park,
her eyes mutely recognised him. He seems to have had no
other attachment till he met his fate in the bright eyes of
Jane Welsh. He had not yet transacted what he called his
* conversion,' or c new birth ' had not yet ' authentically taken
the devil by the nose/ ' Doubt had darkened into unbelief/
That was his own account of his state. He was indeed
forlorn and needing comfort.

There is no mystery whatever as to the fact that Edward
Irving loved Jane Welsh, whatever his actual position with
the Martins may have been. The fact of his finding an
attached and amiable wife in Miss Martin, and proving a
good and loving husband to her, can in no way alter what is
known to have been his devoted love for his old pupil.

Folded among Irving's letters to Miss Welsh is a passionate
sonnet addressed to her, and on the other side of it (she had
preserved his verses and so much of the accompanying letter as
was written on the opposite page of the paper) a fragment, evi-
dently written at this period (about 1820), in which he told her
that he was about to inform Miss Martin, and possibly her father,
of his feelings.

We have seen how that ended. Miss Welsh nobly refused
to listen to the addresses of a man who was not free ; and
Irving, though he afterwards confessed that the struggle had
almost made his faith and principles to totter ' to use his

A LOVER SELF-DECEIVED 27

own words submitted to the inevitable. In a letter he
wrote to Miss Welsh after the matter was decided he

says :

My well-beloved Friend and Pupil, When I think of you, my
mind is overspread with the most affectionate and tender regard,
which I neither know how to name nor to describe. One thing I
know it would long ago have taken the form of the most devoted
attachment but for an intervening circumstance, and shown and
pleaded itself before your heart by a thousand actions, from which
I must now restrain myself. Heaven grant me its grace to restrain
myself ; and, forgetting my own enjoyments, may I be enabled to
combine into your single self all that duty and plighted faith leave
at my disposal. When I am in your company my whole soul would
rush to serve you, and my tongue trembles to speak my heart's
fulness. But I am enabled to forbear, and have to find other
avenues than the natural ones for the overflowing of an affection
which would hardly have been able to confine itself within the
avenues of nature, if they had all been opened.

But I feel within me the power to prevail, and at once to
satisfy duty to another and affection to you. I stand truly upon
ground that seems to shake and give way beneath me, but my
help is in Heaven.

Edward Irving had, as we have seen, left Kirkcaldy an
engaged man, pledged to Miss Isabella Martin, who after-
wards became his wife. Yet was there an unsatisfied longing
in his heart also, for the image of the bright, eager face of
Jeannie Welsh, his former pupil, haunted his mind and
thoughts, and refused to be banished. Parting from her
while she was still almost a child, he had yet had oppor-
tunities of seeing her while she ripened into her lovely
womanhood, and he had learned to know his own heart,
whose deep strong love was, alas ! given to her, and not by
any means to be taken away and bestowed on Miss Martin,
or any other woman. Irving knew it, blinded himself to
it, perhaps, in a measure, and at one time desperately
hoped against hope. But the days of hope were over before
1821, and he knew he was only looking at the roses in

28 GIRLHOOD

another man's garden. Still, he saw Jane Welsh, and time
drifted on.

What, then, of her, at this momentous time ? She shared
the knowledge and the sorrow. The ardent girl had learned
that Irving loved her ; she returned his love, and no doubt
blindly hoped, as he had hoped, that the Martins would set
him free from his engagement. That suspense was all over
now, and stern reality had looked her in the face. Proud
and honourable, she had received his tale of love with the
understanding that, unless he were absolutely free, there
must be no such footing between them as that of lovers.
And he was not free, never would be free to offer his love
and there was an end of it.

There is no doubt, therefore, that a mutual attachment
existed between these two young people. Yet we cannot
predict that Jane Welsh would have found happiness had
her fate united her to this religious and enthusiastic nature.
There would probably, as she herself said in later life, have
been ' no tongues.' But we cannot see that there was a strong
likelihood of happiness between them as her mocking wit
and fine sense of the ludicrous would have harmonised
imperfectly with his simple, devout earnestness. And she
might have come to despise him for his blind faith ; whilst
she never could despise Thomas Carlyle. That bitterness,
at least, was spared her, in the ill-prospering of her first
love. So there was in her an emptiness of heart and a
seeking out for some deeper interest in life, when first she
met Carlyle.

No wonder the proud, brilliant girl looked with immense
contempt on her many would-be admirers, and thought
within herself that it was all mockery and sham. It was
to literature that she now looked for an opening for her
ambition, and an interest that should not fail her ; and it
was as a literary man of genius that Carlyle was presented
to her, in her then empty and dissatisfied state of mind
and heart.

FATE'S GOLDEN HOUR 29

Truly they were three remarkable personalities who met
in that drawing-room which looked out into the flower-garden,
with its trim box-edgings and slender birch-trees, on that
sweet May evening, so memorable a date in the lives of two, at
least, of the three who formed the little company. Mrs. Welsh
was now in the third year of her widowhood ; ' an air of deep
sadness lay on her,' says Carlyle, ' and she soon withdrew/

So the three craving, unsatisfied natures, the three rare
intellects, the three who knew each other so little, and them-
selves so infinitely less, spent their first hours together. l The
summer twilight,' says Carlyle, 'was pouring in rich and
soft; I felt as one walking transiently in upper spheres.'
Probably none of the three ever forgot that hour. The memory
of it was in Carlyle's mind when, not long after, he wrote
that exquisite passage in * Sartor Resartus' beginning, < The
conversation took a higher turn: one fine thought called
forth another.' . . .

This visit lasted three or four days. Writing of it in
later times, Carlyle says : c There were others besides the one
fair figure most of all important to me. We met often, in her
mother's house sat talking with the two, several hours, almost
every evening. The beautiful, bright, earnest young lady was
intent on literature, as the highest aim in life.' Was this
so ? Was it natural that it should be so ? Was Carlyle
so far deceived as to believe this astounding fiction, from the
lips of the young creature, just newly blossomed into life,
and ignorant of so much that goes to form happiness ?

Later on, he was undeceived on one point at least he knew
from her own pen that she had loved Irving { passionately,'
had hidden that love, had jested at Irving's expense to
mislead Carlyle and to shield her own heart like that bird
which starts up in solitary moorland places with shrill cries,
hovering over the place where its nest is NOT, to protect the
precious nook where it is !

This womanly instinct must not be harshly dealt with.
It bears a sacred tenderness in it, and has no real kinship

30 GIRLHOOD

with voluntary untruth or misleading. Jane Welsh, sternly
honourable, as she was to the last fibre in her nature, laid
down this love for Irving, and gave it up, and in time it
ceased to exist as an attachment. She would not love
another woman's husband. But a love such as hers had been, is
not put off as we put off a garment ; the nature and character
receive certain undeniable impressions, and it could never
be with Jane Welsh as though she had not met Edward
Irving.

Many persons are disposed to say that, in this bright,
quick nature of hers, whatever impression there was, must
have been a transient one : that many young girls were in
love with the winning young man ; that, as one of them said
in later life, t Oh ! we were all in love with him ! ' It may
have been so ; but from the documentary evidence in exist-
ence we are forced to believe that in the case of Jane
Welsh it was a far deeper feeling at one time, and, had
Carlyle been more like other men, the letter in which Miss
Welsh confessed to her former feeling for Edward Irving,
might certainly have made him pause in his wooing. But
he was not like other men, and regarded the matter with
totally different judgment. It was by no means unnatural
that Miss Welsh should, finally, think a marriage with Carlyle
possible. She may have cherished a dream of close compa-
nionship with a brilliant mind, the realisation of a satisfied
ambition fed with aliment that should not fail. She sought,
perhaps, some reliable, tangible basis of happiness.

Some such thoughts may have animated Carlyle at this
time of first impressions ; though, in truth, he hardly knew
what companionship was, and often needed, as an old friend
said, ' a solar system, to himself ' so that invisible agencies
would noiselessly minister to his personal needs.

On this visit, Carlyle, charged by Irving with the direction
of Jane Welsh's studies, introduced some of his favourite
German authors to her notice, and obtained permission to
send her books now and then, which gave occasion to c bits

INFLUENCE OF ROUSSEAU 31

of writing to and from ; ' and when she visited the Brad-
fute household, in George's Square, Edinburgh, Carlyle was
allowed to call. And thus the memorable acquaintance pro-
gressed.

I was not her declared lover (says Carlyle), nor could she
admit me as such in my waste and uncertain posture of affairs
and prospects ; but we were becoming thoroughly acquainted
with one another, and her tacit, hidden, but to me visible, friend-
ship, for me was the happy island in my otherwise dreary, vacant,
and forlorn existence in those years.

The German studies were more wholesome literary food
for Miss Welsh than some of the books she was reading about
this time. The reading of ' La Nouvelle Heloi'se ' hardly
suggested valuable ideas ; perhaps the least hurtful effect of
such reading was to foster a contempt in Jane Welsh for the
raw Scotch youths who admired her.

No lover (she writes to Eliza Stodart early in 1822) will Jane
Welsh ever find like St. Preux, no husband like Wolmar (I don't
want to insinuate that I should like both), and to no man will
she give her heart and pretty hand, who bears to these no resem-
blance. George Rennie ! James Aitken ! Robert Macturk !
James Baird ! Robby Angus ! Lord ! O Lord ! Where is
the St. Preux ? Where is the Wolmar ?

We admire the na/iveie with which Jane Welsh tells her
c Angel Bessy,' commenting on Rousseau's heroine, Julie
Etange, that she, Jane Welsh, i does not wish to countenance
such irregularities among her female acquaintances/ but
qualifies this gentle condemnation by the admission that,
4 were any individual of them to meet with such a man, to
struggle as she struggled, to yield as she yielded, and to
repent as she repented,' she ' would love that woman better
than the chastest, coldest prude between John o' Groat's House
and Land's End.' To such sentiments had she ' screwed up
her violin strings ' after reading the ' fatal Book.' It is
amusing, too, to hear her apostrophise the race of old maids

32 GIRLHOOD

as 'virtuous, venerable females,' and express pity for her
aunt, who, ' poor thing ! does not understand love.'

In this same letter she describes Carlyle, from whom she
had just had a letter announcing a visit to Haddington. She
says :

He is something liker to St. Preux than George Craig is to
Wolmar. He has his talents, his vast and cultivated mind, his
vivid imagination, his independence of soul, and his high-souled

principles of honour. But then ah ! these buts . . . Want

of elegance ! Want of elegance, Rousseau says, is a defect no
woman can overlook.

It must be remembered that, at this time, there was a
rather serious love-affair between Jane Welsh and George
Rennie ; it had been the most serious of the many ' affairs,'
and was drawing to a somewhat unexpected close. Strange
to say, in this case, from some unexplained reason, it was the
gentleman who withdrew from the adventure. Carlyle speaks
of him in the * Reminiscences ' as * a clever, decisive, very
ambitious, but quite unmelodious young fellow, whom we
knew afterwards here [in Chelsea] as sculptor and M.P.'
Tender passages would seem to have taken place between
this ' decisive ' young man and Jane Welsh, perhaps without
much depth of feeling. But she says : ' wretch ! I wish
I could hate him, but I cannot. . . . And when Friday comes,
I always think how neatly I used to be dressed, and sometimes
I give my hair an additional brush and put on a clean frill,
just from habit. Oh ! the devil take him ! '

There was certainly, at the time, some feeling on Jane
Welsh's part for this ' unmelodious young fellow,' for when
he was going abroad she writes to Miss Stodart : ' I had not
heard his voice for many a day, but then I had heard those
who had conversed with him. I had seen objects he had
looked on, I had breathed the air that he had breathed.'
And when the young man called to take leave of her, Jane
Welsh says, ' I scarcely heard a word he said, my own heart
beat so loud.' The young lady promptly discards this

THE IDEAL AND THE REAL 33

unwonted mood of tenderness, and goes on, in the same
letter, to describe a visit from Carlyle :

Mr. Carlyle was with us two days (she writes), during the
greater part of which I read German with him. It is a noble
language ; I am getting on famously. He scratched the fender
dreadfully ; I must have a pair of carpet-shoes and handcuffs
prepared for him the next time. His tongue only should be left
at liberty ; his other members are most fantastically awkward.

In concluding the same letter she says : ' I will be happier
contemplating my beau-ideal than a real, substantial, eating,
drinking, sleeping, honest husband ! '

To us, these expressions about George Kennie seem rather
intended to mislead than to enlighten Miss Stodart, for the
name that was never written the name of Edward Irving
was linked with a deeper, unspoken feeling ; and the friend-
ship for George Rennie, which outlasted time and change,
was of another kind, since, many years later, when he lay
dying in London, with wife and family about him, Mrs.
Carlyle went, at Mrs. Bennie's wish, and watched her old
companion and playfellow in his last hours on earth. This,
we would affirm, she could not have done in the case of Edward
Irving ; and this paradox is no paradox to those who know
women's hearts. But Jane Welsh was loyal, and deeply
kind-hearted, and there was nothing to render that last tender
and sacred office of friendship impossible.

34

GIRLHOOD

CHAPTER IV

A.D. 1821-1825

Miss Welsh's German studies Projected literary work Irving's anxieties as
to Miss Welsh's reading Kemonstrances Irving goes to London He
introduces Carlyle to the Bullers The tutorship More intimate corre-
spondence between Carlyle and Miss Welsh Friendship the footing pre-
scribed by Miss Welsh Irving's marriage to Miss Martin Continuation
of the Buller engagement Carlyle's wooing, and its results Stoical
acceptance of repulse Dr. Fyffe Miss Welsh's admiration for genius
The letter from Goethe to Carlyle Sympathy on Byron's death

* Benjamin B * Miss Welsh does not pay a visit to the Irvings in

London.

THE thought of Edward Irving as a lover was put away, and
in time took its place with the sad, beautiful things that
were not to be ' Es war' zu schon gewesen ! ' Meantime
George Bennie was on the high seas, and Miss Welsh busy
with her German studies, laughingly considering some lite-
rary work that should tend to the 'immortalising of old
maids.' She declined an offer made her by one of the editors
of a proposed local magazine, and was ready to swear that
the first number would be the last. The offer in question,
made by Mr. George Cunningham, was that she should assist
the projected literary work with her pen ; and certainly she
would have been a brilliant contributor, but her powers were
destined to be otherwise employed. Her interest in German
was very genuine. In an enforced absence from her studies
she says, writing to Miss Stodart, l Oh my beloved German !
my precious, precious time ! '

These German readings with Carlyle were a source of
fresh anxiety to Edward Irving.

ADVANCED CULTURE 35

I would like (he writes to Thomas Carlyle) to see her sur-
rounded with a more noble set of companions than Rousseau

(your friend), and Byron, and such-like . . . And I don't

think it will much mend the matter when you get her intro-
duced to Von Schiller and Von Goethe, and your other nobles
of German literature. I fear Jane has already dipped too
deep into that spring, so that, unless some more solid food
be afforded, I fear she will escape altogether out of the region
of my sympathies, and the sympathies of honest, home-bred
men.

Irving also feared the influence of some of the German
writers as likely to undermine Miss Welsh's religious convic-
tions, which he had himself laboured to establish in what he
felt more and more convinced was the only true form. It was
natural, no doubt, that he should view Carlyle as a dangerous
teacher ; but it is no less true that Carlyle's own principles, as
applied to life and morals, were as pure in their results as can
be inspired by the most orthodox creed in existence.

In 1822 an important change took place in Carlyle's
circumstances. Since his retirement from his post of school-
master in Kirkcaldy, in 1818, he had led a struggling life
in Edinburgh, writing, reading, translating, at very mode-
rate remuneration, borne down by poverty and dyspepsia.
But at this time his constant friend, Edward Irving, was
invited as minister to the Caledonian chapel in Hatton
Garden, and his subsequent brilliant success as preacher
there brought him in contact with many distinguished
persons. Among these was Mrs. Charles Buller, a wealthy
lady with sons. Recommended by Irving, Thomas Carlyle
became tutor to two of these lads, and was at once in easy
circumstances, and nobly helped his family.

The correspondence with Haddington continued, and grew
even more intimate. Mr. Froude says : l The relations between
tutor and pupil developed, or promised to develop, into a
literary partnership.' As such it might have been a success.
There was no sign of tender feeling on Jane Welsh's part,
and a decided check imposed on the earliest indication of

i> 2

gallantry. Friendship, the beautiful girl maintained, was the
only footing possible between them. And Carlyle acquiesced,
without a suspicion. It was, perhaps, not difficult for him
to observe this wish of hers.

Edward Irving was in London, out of the way, but took
his trouble with him, and did, it seems, contemplate even
now informing Miss Martin and her father of his feelings.
But the Martins had justice and custom on their side, and,
though actually appealed to, stood firm to their contract.
A letter from Irving to Jane Welsh after the final decision
was made is painful in its forced tone of resignation, its
mixture of passionate love and religious formula simple,
true, and manly as is the attitude adhered to.

Upon Irving the effect of this disappointment was un-
doubted and abiding. A few months later he married Miss
Martin, and entered on a new life. His old self was left
behind. As Mr. Froude says, ' the old, simple, unconscious
Irving ceased to exist.' But there were other potent causes
in Irving's career from this point which rendered simplicity
and unconsciousness difficult to maintain, though his married
life was calm and loving ; more peaceful than it could have
been with the quick, fiery-hearted, brilliant Jane Welsh.
And she surely would not have found her beau-ideal in
Edward Irving ; nor was she formed for that simple and
uncomplicated happiness which suffices to so many women
and wives. ' Where the light is brightest the shadows are
deepest : ' so say the Germans ; and both were very vivid in
this remarkable girl. It would be hard to say what Jane
Welsh would have really considered as happiness.

In any case, she now turned to her strange relation with
Carlyle, which offered interest of no common kind. He
wrote her his discontented and yet brilliant letters during
the Buller engagement admitted that he had 'quiet, and
free air, and returning health ' and besought her not to be
in pain for him.

In October 1822 he paid a hasty visit to his faithful and

THE ABIDING AND THE TRANSIENT 37

beloved old mother, always dearer, practically, to him, than
any one on earth. Here, in Mainhill, a most rudimentary
little farmhouse, he tried to comfort his mother as to his
spiritual state ; no doubt, over their midnight pipes, they
exchanged much earnest talk, and these must have been
among the most precious hours ever spent by Thomas
Carlyle. Meanwhile, the 'paragon of gifted young girls'
abode with her dignified, sad, and beautiful mother, in
the comfortable house at Haddington, among what Carlyle
called the ' elegant whim- whams ' of a refined home, fas-
tidious as to the binding of her ' wee, wee Cicero,' playing
the piano, singing Moore's melodies, and sending kisses to
* Brady.' There had been a visit of f Uncle Robert,' once
spoken of as 'perfectly divine,' now evidently fallen from
that giddy elevation. ' There ' (she says) ' was my precious
uncle, sneezing, snarling, and sometimes snoring ; the Lady
[her aunt] dressing, yawning, and practising postures ; our
mother wearying her heart to entertain them, all in vain, and
our sorrowful self casting many a wistful glance towards the
little table where Schiller and Alfieri lay neglected.'

Thus opened the year 1823. In May, Carlyle spent a
week in Annandale, and wrote to Miss Welsh : ' Here I
purpose to spend my leisure, and to think sweetly of friends
that are far away.' Such thoughts must have been mostly of
the charming girl he was addressing. The position could
not possibly remain at a fixed point of friendship and literary
sympathy. Such terms become flimsy pretences between a
man and a woman unless each has some deep, abiding
haven of the heart, whence, safely anchored, they can ' sport
upon the shore ; ' and neither Thomas Carlyle nor Jane Welsh
had such abiding-place. She truly sought none such, but
was amused, flattered, perhaps at times touched, to see this
man of genius at her feet. And his social status seemed, no
doubt, to her a very real barrier against the idea of a marriage
between them. It was a temptation hard for the lively girl to
resist that of playing with the feelings of this uncouth and

38 GIRLHOOD

remarkable man, and it is not to be wondered at that she
should yield to it. So he was { caressed or chidden by the
dainty hand,' and was well contented.

He was ever ready to listen to her lively sallies ; and in the
summer of 1823, when staying in some house she particu-
larly disliked, Miss Welsh, dating her letter, in her forcible
language, as from c Hell, 9 must have somewhat overstated her
gratitude for Carlyle's affection for her. She must have
expressed herself with less reticence than usual, carelessly
perhaps; but by Carlyle, little practised in the ways of
woman, what she said was eagerly taken as a willingness on
her part to become his wife. Nothing could have been
further from the young lady's thoughts, and she lost no time
in explaining herself, so as to do away with the effect of what
she had done.

My friend ! (she said) I love you I repeat it, though I find
the expression a rash one. All the best feelings of my nature
are concerned in loving you. But were you my brother, I should
love you the same. No ! Your friend I will be, your truest,
most devoted friend, while I breathe the breath of life. But
your wife, never ! Never ! not though you were as rich as
Croesus, as honoured and renowned as you yet shall be !

This sounds decisive, and Carlyle took it as a conclusive
settling of the point, and bore it as a brave man should,
replying in terms which, had Miss Welsh loved him, would
indeed have broken off the intimacy once for all. f My heart,'
he said, * is too old by almost half a score of years 9 (he was
only twenty-eight), ' and is made of sterner stuff than to break
in junctures of this kind.' One might naturally ask, In what
kind of juncture, then, would his heart have broken ? But
he continues : 1 1 have no idea of dying in the Arcadian
shepherd's style for the disappointment of hopes which I never
seriously entertained, or had no right to entertain seriously/

As we have said, between lovers such words as these
would either have been impossible to be spoken, or impossible

RESTLESSNESS AND GERMAN STUDY 39

to be forgiven ; but between this strange pair they produced
little effect. Jane Welsh was desceuvree ; her life did not
give her that whereby her eager, restless nature could live.
She could not ' live by bread alone.' She could not lay down
the romantic idea of aiding the upward striving of this man
of extraordinary genius ; there were interest, excitement,
occupation of thought, literary sympathy elements which
made life worth living and the correspondence between her-
self and Carlyle continued. In a letter to Miss Stodart on
March 31, 1823, Jane Welsh writes: < Often at the end of
the week my spirits and my industry begin to flag ; but then
comes one of Mr. Carlyle's brilliant letters, that inspires me
with new resolution, and brightens all my hopes and prospects
with the golden hues of his own imagination/

At this time she busied herself with certain humble
proteges : A beggar-boy of fifteen taken on trust as a genius,
but with an aversion to all kinds of mortal labour, which
could not do away with faults of a less exalted character, such
as lying and refusing to wash his face was one of these. A
second pensioner, described as being ' eight years old and a
few inches high,' proved more respectable and satisfactory.

These benevolent occupations were supplemented by her
4 translating German.' ' As busy at this,' she says, ' as if my
fortune in this world and my salvation in the world to come
depended on my proficiency in that enchanting tongue.' This
devotion to German showed that she wished to please Carlyle,
who was also deep in the language.

Jane Welsh was sharp as ever in her sarcasm. She speaks
of the little gunpowder-man of medicine ' (Dr. Fyffe) in sin-
gularly cutting terms :

Now, when he perceives (she writes) that he may bleed or
boil himself to the day of Pentecost without interesting this hard
and stony heart of mine the least in his favour, he is adopting
another mode of attack. Instead of shaving his whiskers, and
using all possible expedients to give him the aspect of a woe-
begone man, he is now trying to dazzle my wits with a white hat,

40 GIRLHOOD

silver-headed jockey whip, and bits of leggings of so bright a
yellow that it does me ill to look at them.

In this letter she asks her 'dear, dear Angel Bessie' to
do her two tremendous favours, one being to send a book to
Dr. Carlyle's lodgings. Dr. John Carlyle was now studying
medicine at Edinburgh University, and Miss Welsh had
forgotten the name of the people with whom he was lodging.
The other favour requested, savours of the mysterious : c You
are to be so very kind as to order for me at Gibson and Craig's
one of the best gentlemen's hats, of the most fashionable cut,
not broad-rimmed. The outside measure is enclosed. It is to
be a present to my intended husband, so do see that they
send a Jemmy one.'

Mr. Ritchie gives the date 01 this letter as doubtful, and
we are inclined to think that it must have been written
in 1826 when Carlyle really was Miss Welsh's 'intended
husband,' and she may have had some feminine view of
smartening him up. Things had not gone so far as this in
1824, when Miss Welsh tells her ' dearest Eliza ' how for two
weeks she never wearied of her cousin played chess with
him, strolled through the woods with him, or sat on a green
bank talking sentiment with him, and, whilst admitting his
nature to be most affectionate, his spirit magnificent, his
intellect clear and quick, his fancy lively, and himself beau-
tiful, brilliant, graceful, and courtly, yet deplored his not
possessing genius, that fatal gift, necessary, as she adds, to the
destiny of her life. And this was evidently the fact, for, when
the momentous choice was at length made, Jane Welsh elected
to choose genius, without some of these gracious and attrac-
tive accompaniments. Her longing after genius was a real
and an unquenchable one ; genius in her life-partner was her
sine qud non, and, for the time, at least, this longing out-
weighed and dominated all other desires. And the gods
heard, and she had her wish.

It would seem that in 1824 Jane Welsh's decision still
hung in the balance, however. ' I begin to think,' she says,

A SYMPATHY SHARED 41

' that men and women may be very charming without having
any genius. Who knows but I shall grow reasonable at last,
and descend from my ideal heaven to the real earth marry
and, Plato ! make a pudding. 5 But Jane Welsh acted
out her ideal, and proved its real nature and consequences.
Her various love-affairs ruffled, but did not stir her. She
overwhelmed her unlucky suitors with satirical invective.
But she could not treat Thomas Carlyle so. His hold on her
lay out of the reach of her mocking spirit. In December
1824 he sent her a letter from Goethe to himself a copy in
characters which she could read, as well as the original. This
greatly pleased the ambitious young girl. 'As written to
Carlyle himself, it is highly complimentary,' she writes to
Miss Stodart, i and, coming from the man whom he honours
almost to idolatry, must have gratified him beyond measure/

Another yet more precious inclosure was a fragment of a
letter from Byron, which affected Miss Welsh most power-
fully. ' This, then,' she says, ' was his handwriting ; his,
whose image had haunted my imagination for years and
years, whose wild, glorious spirit had tinctured all the poetry
of my being.' This subject of Byron was one on which sym-
pathetic utterances had been exchanged. When the fatal
news had come from Missolonghi, Miss Welsh had written to
Carlyle : ' I was told it all alone in a room full of people.
If they had said the sun or the moon was gone out of the
heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more
awful blank in the creation than the words, "Byron is
dead ! " Carlyle had answered : * Poor Byron ! Alas ! the
news of his death came upon my heart like a mass of lead. . . .
I dreamed of seeing him and knowing him, but the curtain
of everlasting night has hid him from our eyes. We shall
go to him ; he shall not return to us. There is a blank in
your heart and in mine since this man passed away.'

How exquisite must this sympathy, thus expressed by
Thomas Carlyle, on this subject, have been to the enthusiastic
young girl ! What more perfect method could Carlyle's good

42 GIRLHOOD

angel have suggested to him to ingratiate himself withal in
this tenderly romantic heart? And the partaking of this
sorrowful regret, taken in conjunction with the use of that
charmed possessive pronoun, { our,' certainly paved the way
for nearer relations between these two isolated natures.
Carlyle made a decided advance in Miss Welsh's good graces
at this time.

In April 1825, Miss Welsh describes an amusing scene:

Mr. Benjamin B called, bent on serious wooing, and found

the field already occupied. Mr. Carlyle was there, a guest, in
the drawing-room at Haddington. { I kept talking,' says
Miss Welsh ; < I just kept on talking away to Mr. Carlyle

about the Peak of Teneriffe.' Benjamin B must have

shown much patient perseverance, for it seems he subse-
quently ' talked for two hours, with a miraculous command
of absurdity.' Such was the lady's verdict on his eloquence.

In the same letter to Miss Stodart occur the significant
words : ' I do not go to London this season either, for
reasons which I have not room to explain. It is not Mr.
Irving's fault this time ! ' Mr. Froude tells us how it had
been intended that Miss Welsh should visit Irving and his
wife in London as soon as they were settled there, 'but
Irving could not face the trial.' Brave and good Irving!
he would not let her face the trial. He loved her better than
he loved himself. Had she made that visit at that time,
however, we cannot help thinking that the whole course of
her own life might have been changed. For she would have
gained some self-knowledge ; it would have been forced on
her with a painful awakening, perhaps but it would have
prevented her, probably, from marrying as she did. Yet in
saying this we are speaking in ignorance as to her having
been happier either unwedded or otherwise wedded, since
her nature was not easy to be made happy, and the causes
which militated most strongly against her happiness were in
her own nature, more than in circumstances. So, at least, we
are led to think.

43

CHAPTER V

A.D. 1825

Carlyle in London Thoughts of marriage Difficulties Mrs, Montagu
' Barry Cornwall ' Allan Cunningham The breaking-off of the Buller
engagement Irving's hospitality Serious reflections Consultations
with Miss Welsh The idea of * living on a farm ' Miss Welsh's very
different project Carlyle's independent spirit Exceptional position
of affairs Miss Welsh's delicate health The proposal to farm Craigen-
puttock Final decision left to Miss Welsh Suspense Discussion
Modest wants of Carlyle Miss Welsh demurs at the essential condi-
tions, but still proffers friendship Carlyle's renewed professions of
attachment.

CARLYLE had sailed to London on June 5 of this same year,
to continue his duties in the Buller family, and to see some-
thing of a new life. Irving had been sanguine that literary
society would open its arms to a man of genius like his friend.
Carlyle himself gravely doubted this, and had rather a
hankering for some remote and undisturbed nook in Scotland,
where he might possess his soul in peace, and devote himself
to work, unmolested, at whatever the spirit might move
him to do. Such rural paradise must, of course, contain
some helpful and wholly unexacting human presence, which
should attend to the l cares of bread ' without troubling him
in any way, yet with strict attention to his simple but pro-
nounced needs in this direction. This rendered the plan a
difficult one to arrange. Meantime he would go to London,
and await a summons from the Buller family. His own
description of his reception in Irving's house is characteristic.
It may be read in the c Reminiscences.'

In a letter to Miss Welsh, dated a few days after his
arrival, he sketches some of the people he has met ; notably,

44 GIRLHOOD

Mrs. Montagu, of whom his words are, possibly unintention-
ally, disparaging. It was she whom Irving always called the
6 noble lady,' and to whom Carlyle, later on, addressed letters
of the most affectionate cordiality ; to whom, also, he was in-
debted for great kindness and hospitality. Carlyle speaks of
Barry Cornwall, with ( the dreamy wildness in his eye ; ' of
Allan Cunningham, 'my most dear, modest, kind, good-
humoured Allan Cunningham ; ' and of many others.

The uncertainty of the Bullers' movements greatly
annoyed and distracted Carlyle. It ended finally in the
breaking-up of the engagement with that family. Carlyle
now found himself free, and happier than he had been for
some time. Irving's hospitality was immediately at his
disposal.

One little trait may be quoted from a letter written to
Miss Welsh in October of the same year, when Carlyle was
visiting the Irvings at Dover. Carlyle found something
hugely ridiculous in the interest Irving and his wife took in
their firstborn, and quotes the ' Orator,' as he ofbenest styled
Irving, as having said on one occasion to his wife : i Isabella,
I think I would wash him with warm water to-night ; ' on
which Carlyle's comment to the young mother, as reported
by himself, was that he, were he in her place, would wash
him with oil of vitriol if he pleased, and take no one's counsel.

It was, as we must remember, in absolute ignorance of
the past that lay between Miss Welsh and Edward Irving,
that Carlyle thus discoursed to her of the c Orator.' ' Oh ! '
says he, ' that you but saw the giant, with his broad-brimmed
hat, his sallow visage, and his sable fleece of hair, carrying
the little pepper-box of a creature ! ' Yet, in the ' Reminis-
cences,' he adds how Irving said to him : ' Ah ! Carlyle, this
little creature has been sent to me to soften my hard heart.'
And this utterance had evidently touched Carlyle's own heart,
which was eminently not hard.

An unexpected excursion to Paris followed this holiday ;
after which Carlyle returned to London, and lived near

AN INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE 45

Irving, to finish his * Life of Schiller.' He was still sick in
body and perturbed in mind ; he writes with intensified
bitterness of the Irving family, but says, in a letter to John
Carlyle in November: 'Yet were I a dog if I did not
love him!' And here again the heart of Thomas Carlyle
spoke.

The correspondence with Miss Welsh continued, and she
must have been the main element in the dissatisfied and
ambitious man's thoughts and schemes. He began to loathe
London. He had saved a little money, even after his generous
help to his brothers. He felt he must seriously consult her,
whose opinion was almost all-in-all to him, and who he had
some reason to think might consent to marry him when once
he was able to offer her a tolerably comfortable home.

To such conclusion had Carlyle come after long and intimate
correspondence with Miss Welsh. His own tastes were of the
simplest ; he concluded, with beautiful unconsciousness, that
hers would also be so. His idea at this time was to take
and stock a farm in Annandale, leaving his brother Alexander
to manage it. Then he would have quietness to write and
study, and the two sources of activity would surely realise a
small but sufficient income to marry upon. It was a very
simple Utopia, but as illusory as the wildest dreams of the
dreamers.

He tells his plans to Miss Welsh, who had evidently
thought, in her inexperience, that some ready-made c pension '
or * sinecure ' would be ready, lying at the feet of a man of
such genius something that, without effort on his part,
should redeem him from the vulgar necessity of making a
living.

A sinecure ! (he says in reply). God bless thee, my darling !
I could not touch a sinecure, though twenty of my friends should
volunteer to offer it ! ... For affection, or the faintest imitation
of it, a man should feel obliged to his very dog ; but for the
gross assistance of patronage or purse, let him pause before
accepting them from any one.

46 GIRLHOOD

And these feelings were genuine, and expressed in manly
language, such as Miss Welsh could not but admire.

The years during which this remarkable correspondence
was going on must have been strange and unrestful years for
Jane Welsh. The correspondence itself is as unlike the
ordinary pre-matrimonial exchange of letters as the two
writers were unlike the general run of people. There was,
from the first, something altogether exceptional in the whole
position of affairs almost unprecedented.

Let us here draw attention for a moment to Miss Welsh's
own account of her physical health, showing, as it does,
the ominous foreshadowing of a highly sensitive and too
finely balanced temperament, which was to develop such
cruel forms of suffering in later life. In a letter dated
Templand, August 1825, Miss Welsh writes to her friend,
Miss Stodart :

My life is passing on here in the usual alternating manner.
One day I am ill and in bed ; the next, in full puff at an enter-
tainment. . . . What pains me most is, that between headaches
and visiting my education is completely at a stand. . . . And,
after all, I am not very blamable on the score of idleness ; it is
in vain to think of toiling up the steep of knowledge with a
burden of sickness on one's shoulders, and hardly less difficult
for a young person of my attractions to lead the life of a recluse.

We here see, plainly enough, that Jane Welsh was not
strong and healthy, even in those early and comparatively
untried days. She suffered at times, was restless, and ill at
ease. Her strongest interest at the time was undoubtedly
her friendship with Carlyle that friendship bordering so
closely on a deeper feeling.

There was more than mere ambition, we think, in the
attraction she felt towards Carlyle. She admired and
venerated him ; she felt that he was superior to any man
she had ever known : and he had sympathised with her, as
we have already seen. She had certainly loved Edward
Irving, but that love had not been destined to fill her life.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS 47

Would it ever have filled it? We can never know; and
doubtless the scent of the rose-leaves clung round that early-
closed page of her life, and possibly never quite left it. But
what the actual result of the union would have been we
cannot guess. How that keenly awakened, mocking spirit
would have taken Irving's pious phraseology, and his whole
mode of thought, is beyond our power to predict. The
love-story was never dragged out to its end. Irving,
bound in honour, had gone his way; and though Jane
Welsh could not again give that passionate youthful love
which was given to him, we need not conclude that therefore
she could not love at all, and was bereft of all power or wish
to make a good man happy. How many marriages, and
happy marriages, too, are built on the second, rather than on
the first deep, beautiful outpouring of the heart ? Many a
man would have preferred to marry Miss Welsh with the
feeling she had for Thomas Carlyle than with that which she
felt for Edward Irving. We are not speaking at random ;
we have heard it from the lips of a good man and true, who
knew her long and intimately, and understood her as few
have ever done. Probably she would not have found life per-
fect with any man, since her own eager, restless nature bore
within it so many possibilities, almost necessities of pain.

Carlyle was nobly ready to relieve her from any promise to
him. But she did not wish to be relieved. His proposal to
farm Craigenputtock did not seem wild to him. His own
recollections of Mainhill and the family life made it quite
natural. His mother, whom he loved and venerated above
all earthly beings, spent her life in a cottage, discharging the
humblest of daily tasks. He saw nothing anomalous in the
plan. It was merely an error in judgment, and a pardonable,
and in some sense a natural one, that he should propose this
solitary moorland life to Miss Welsh. He writes to her from
London on January 9, 1825:

. . . You bid me tell you how I have decided what I mean
to do. It is you that must decide. I will endeavour to explain

48 GIRLHOOD

to you what I wish ; it must rest with you to say whether it can
ever be attained.

You tell me you have land which needs improvement. Why
not work on that 1 In one word, then, will you go with me ?
Will you be my own for ever ? Say Yes, and I embrace the
project with my whole heart. I send my brother Alick over to
rent that Nithsdale farm for me without delay ; I proceed to it
the moment I am freed from my engagements here ; I labour in
arranging it, and fitting everything for your reception ; and the
instant it is ready I take you home to my hearth, never more to
part from me, whatever fate betide us.

I fear you think this scheme a baseless vision ; and yet it is
the sober best among the many I have meditated the best for
me, and I think also, so far as I can judge of it, for yourself. . . .
Depend upon it, Jane, this literature, which both of us are so bent
on pursuing, will not constitute the sole nourishment of any true
human spirit. . . . Literature is the wine of life; it will not,
cannot be, its food.

. . . You, too, are unhappy, and I see the reason. You have
a deep, earnest, and vehement spirit, and no earnest task has ever
been assigned to it. You despise and ridicule the meanness of
the things about you. To the things you honour you can only
pay a fervent adoration, which issues in no practical effect. Oh
that I saw you the mistress of a house, diffusing over human
souls that loved you those clear faculties of order, judgment,
elegance, which you are now reduced to spend on pictures and
portfolios blessing living hearts with that enthusiastic love
which you must now direct to the distant and the dimly seen !
All this is in you. You have a heart, and an intellect, and a
resolute decision which might make you the model of wives,
however widely your thoughts and your experience have hitherto
wandered from that highest distinction of the noblest women.
I, too, have wandered wide and far. Let us return ; let us
return together ! Let us learn through one another what it is
to live ! . . .

The first, the lowest, but a most essential point, is that of
funds. On this matter I have still little to tell you that you do
not know. I feel, in general, that I have ordinary faculties in
me, and an ordinary degree of diligence in using them, and that

SERIOUS PROPOSITIONS 49

thousands manage life in comfort with even slenderer resources.
... To my taste, cleanliness and order are far beyond gilding
and grandeur, which, without them, is an abomination ; and for
displays, for festivals, and parties, I believe you are as indisposed
as myself. . . . Two laws I have laid down to myself : that I
must and will recover health, without which to think, or even to
live, is burdensome or unprofitable ; and that I will not degene-
rate into the wretched thing which calls itself an author, in our
capitals, and scribbles for the sake of lucre in the periodicals of
the day. ... I begin to entertain a certain degree of contempt
for the destiny which has so long persecuted me. I will be a
man in spite of it. Yet it lies with you whether I shall be a
right man, or only a hard and bitter Stoic I ...

Speak, then ! Think well of me, of yourself, of our circum-
stances, and determine ! Dare you trust me ? dare you trust
your fate with me, as I trust mine with you ? Judge if I wait
your answer with impatience. I know you will not keep me
waiting. Of course, it will be necessary to explain all things to
your mother, and take her serious advice respecting them. For
your other friends, it is not worth while consulting one of them.
I know not that there is one among them that would give you as
disinterested advice as even I, judging in my own cause. May
God bless you and direct you ! Decide as you will.

This was manly and true sure to move a nature like
that of Jane Welsh. What woman could have read the letter
unmoved? But Miss Welsh was intensely practical, and
saw difficulties which Carlyle could not see. She was keenly
conscious of his total unfitness for the life he was proposing,
and doubtless felt its extreme unsuitability, at all points, to
herself. She answered his letter with a plain and unvarnished
truthfulness, which would have caused any ordinary man
and lover to throw up the whole project, and turn away for
ever from the terribly clear-sighted and deliberate young
lady. Here are passages from her reply, dated Haddington,
January 13, 1825:

I little thought my joke about your farming Craigenputtock was
to be made the basis of such a serious and extraordinary project.

E

50 GIRLHOOD

. . . You have sometimes asked me, Did I ever think ? For
once in my life, at least, I have thought myself into a vertigo, and
without coming to any positive conclusion. However, my mind,
such as it is, on the matter you have thus precipitately forced on
my consideration, I will explain to you frankly and explicitly, as
the happiness of us both requires. I love you, and I should be
the most ungrateful and injudicious of mortals if I did not. But
I am not in love with you ; that is to say, my love for you is not
a passion which overclouds my judgment, and absorbs all my
regard for myself and others. It is a simple, honest, serene
affection, made up of admiration and sympathy, and better, per-
haps, to found domestic enjoyment on than any other. In short,
it is a love which influences, does not make, the destiny of a life.

Such temperate sentiments lend no false colouring, no * rosy
light ' to your project. I see it, such as it is, with all the argu-
ments for and against it. I see that my consent, under existing
circumstances, would, indeed, secure to me the only fellowship
and support I have found in the world, and perhaps, too, shed
some sunshine of joy on your existence, which has hitherto been
sullen and cheerless ; but, on the other hand, that it would involve
you and myself in numberless cares and difficulties, and expose
me to p